at last, a reckoning?

By Diogenes ( articles ) | May 04, 2006

Christin Gilbert (right, in the photo below) died after a botched abortion with botched after-care in Dr. George Tiller's notorious Wichita clinic (see earlier OTR postings here, here, and here). Earlier this week a judge ordered a grand jury to convene to investigate Tiller for possible violations of Kansas law that include second-degree murder, failure to report abuse, illegal late-term abortion, and mistreatment of a dependent adult. His order was in response to a petition calling for the investigation and bearing 6,186 certified signatures of Kansas citizens.

Gilbert was afflicted with Down Syndrome, and a particularly poignant aspect of her story is seen in the contrast between the innocence of the woman herself and the shamelessly crass self-interest of the "abortion providers" -- whose callousness brought about needless death of her child and whose defensive oafishness contributed to the needless death of Christin herself. I find it hard to rid myself of the picture evoked by the autopsy report, of Christin's corpse lying face-up on the mortuary slab, with empty eye-sockets staring at the ceiling. Her eyes, says the report, were "absent secondary to organ procurement."

NARAL and NOW like to plaster their websites and propaganda with pictures of serious, attractive, well-groomed professional women, the kind of women easy to imagine as responsible, intelligent, and capable of making their own health-care decisions. Hint: don't look for a photo of Christin, or her lost child, to be added to their galleries.