You don't save lives by killing doctors

Here we go again.

This morning in Kansas, a gunman walked into a Wichita Lutheran church and gunned down one of the ushers. The usher, Dr. George Tiller, was notorious in the pro-life community for performing late-term abortions.

Most folks who have commented have said all the right things, including the hard-line group Operation Rescue, which said "We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning."

But somewhere, I'm sure there are at least a few folks thinking that killing Tiller meant that at least a few additional babies might live.

I consider myself pro-life in a qualified sort of way -- more on that later -- but if there's one thing I know, it's that you don't grab the high moral ground in this debate by killing doctors. What happened in Wichita is every bit as much an act of terror as a suicide bomber walking into a restaurant in the Middle East and setting himself off.

Killing is killing, and that's the reason I am opposed to capital punishment, euthanasia and assisted suicide as well as abortion.

Here's where my position becomes "qualified," though. I believe that as long as our laws and our society are the way they are, abortion needs to be safe and legal. That said, if a woman in my life became pregnant, I would do whatever I could to dissuade her from terminating her pregnancy.

Of course if I couldn't, the choice would be up to her. That's a choice I'm perfectly willing to let her make, as long as she understands that her actions have consequences and that she may have to justify herself before God at the end of her life.

Before I would even consider restricting abortions, I think we need to do everything we can to help women make the decision for life. That includes financial aid if needed, pre- and post-natal health care, adoption assistance and child care if she decides to raise the child.

Without those things, we're not pro-life. We're just pro-birth.

That's the way to reduce abortions.

Not killing doctors.