Even *MORE* on Xtian Terrorism

Abortion MD Returns To Work Day After Shooting
Associated Press -- 08/20/93
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An abortion [provider] doctor returned to work Friday less than
12 hours after being shot, and his alleged attacker--- a homemaker
active in the anti-abortion movement--- is in custody.

Wearing bandages on both arms, Dr George Tiller arrived at Women's
Health Care Services in Wichita, Kan, Friday morning, stopping
outside to thank those who tended to him after Thursday evening's
shooting.

About a dozen abortion-rights activists showed up at the clinic
and heckled a half dozen anti-abortion protesters.

Rachelle Renae "Shelley" Shannon, 37, of Grants Pass, Ore, was
arrested early Friday at the Oklahoma City airport in connection
with the shooting.

The Sedgwick County district attorney's office in Wichita filed
an attempted first-degree murder charge late Friday afternoon and
faxed a warrant for Shannon's arrest to Oklahoma City authorities,
a spokeswoman says.

A court hearing is scheduled in Oklahoma City to determine when
she will returned to Wichita, about 160 miles north.

The White House called the shooting "reprehensible" and says
President Clinton will continue to support abortion rights.

"We deplore that kind of violence," White House spokeswoman Dee
Dee Myers told reporters Friday. "It's just reprehensible."

Tiller, target of 6 weeks of protests in 1991 by Operation Rescue,
was the second physician to be shot outside an abortion clinic this
year. The first, Dr. David Gunn, was fatally shot in Florida.

Tiller, 52, had said during the 1991 protests that he wouldn't
allow anti-abortion forces to intimidate him or drive him out of
business.

Peggy Jarman, spokeswoman for Tiller and the ProChoice Action
League, said: "I knew if there was any way possible for him to be
at work he would be. I had hoped he would take a couple of days
off, but that was unrealistic of me."

Tiller is one of about a half dozen US physicians who do late-term
abortions [i.e. emergency abortions].

He has said he performs abortions after the 26th week of pregnancy
when there are severe fetal abnormalities or the life of the mother
is endangered. Abortion protesters have accused him of performing
abortions up until the moment of birth; he denies it.

Tiller was leaving his Wichita clinic Thursday evening when a woman
who had been mingling with protesters near its driveway approached
his vehicle.

Witnesses said she fired 4 or 5 shots from a small-caliber, chrome-
plated semiautomatic pistol.

Not realizing he had been wounded, the doctor drove a short distance
down the street following the woman as she fled. Once he felt pain
and saw blood, he drove back to the clinic, Jarman said.

Clinic employees followed the woman and got a description of her
car and a license number, police said.

After 45 minutes of surgery under local anesthetic, Tiller was
released from HCA Wesley Medical Center.

Jarman said one wound was superficial, and the other involved muscle
but not bone damage.

National and local anti-abortion groups distanced themselves from
the attack.

"This is an act of violence between one woman and one man," said
Mischele Thompson, executive director of LIFE Inc, a Wichita anti-
abortion group. [So -now- it's a private matter between a woman
and her doctor?! Oh, the irony!]