By: Damien Pearse
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/31/abortion-doctor-george-tiller-killed
Sunday 31 May, 2009
A doctor who was one of the few in the US to continue carrying out late-term abortions was shot dead in a church today.
George Tiller, 67, who had been picketed, bombed and shot in the arms in previous incidents, was killed at his church in Kansas, according to police sources.
Tiller was a controversial man, whose clinic has been the site of protests for two decades. He was shot and wounded by a protester in 1993 and someone placed a bomb on the roof of the clinic in 1986, seriously damaging the building.
Police spokesman Gordon Bassham would not confirm the victim's identity but said a 67-year-old "high-profile individual in the community" was shot and killed. He was shot at 10am in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran church in Wichita, police and city officials said.
According to the reports a white man carrying a handgun shot the doctor and then fled in a blue Ford Taurus.
"It's an unfortunate incident to happen on a Sunday morning," Wichita police ¬captain Brent Allred told reporters. "These things should not occur at any time."
The FBI and state police were called in to help search for the gunman, whose licence plate was registered to a home in a suburb of Kansas City, 200 miles away.
The shooting came just two weeks after Barack Obama sought "common ground" over the divisive abortion debate in a ¬controversial speech at one of America's leading Catholic universities.
The president has attempted to defuse one of the most emotive issues in US public life by arguing that while abortion should remain legal, the government should do all it can to limit unwanted pregnancies.
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