As David Neiwert posted yesterday, a group of violent anti-abortion zealots planned to hold an online auction on eBay to help pay legal expenses for Scott Roeder, the man who murdered abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller at his Kansas church. Thankfully, eBay has stepped up to do the right thing and is blocking the auction:

An eBay auction planned by abortion opponents to raise money for the man accused of killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller will not be permitted, company officials said Tuesday.

"Based on the details we know about the anticipated listings, we believe these would violate our policy regarding offensive material," the company said in a statement to The Kansas City Star. "eBay will not permit the items in question to be posted to the eBay site, and they will be removed if they are posted."

It its statement, eBay said, “we do not allow items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity and will not be a platform for those who promote violence toward others.” Read on...

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Judy Thomas in the Kansas City Star has an amazing piece (picked up by MSNBC) about the online fund-raiser being planned for Scott Roeder, the right-wing extremist who shot Dr. George Tiller in the head in his church:

An Army of God manual. A prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons. An autographed bullhorn.

These are among the items that abortion foes plan to auction on eBay and other Web sites in a fundraiser for Scott Roeder, the Kansas City man charged with killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller.

“This is unique,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who will sign the bullhorn. “Nobody’s ever done this before. The goal is that everybody makes money for Scott Roeder’s defense.”

One abortion-rights leader called the auction deplorable and said it could lead to more violence.

“The network of extremists promoting and defending the murder of doctors is contributing to escalating threats against clinics and doctors across the country,” said Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Roeder, charged with first-degree murder in the May 31 shooting of Tiller, is scheduled to go to trial in January.

Perhaps even more appalling is the line of defense they hope to pursue in the courts with this money:

Leach and others would like to help Roeder hire a lawyer to present what is known as a necessity defense. That strategy would argue that Tiller was killed to prevent a greater harm — killing babies. Other anti-abortion activists charged with violent crimes have tried to use such a defense but with little success.

Yeah, let's legalize killing abortion doctors. Sounds like a job for Antonin Scalia. One can only hope this defense has zero success, as it has in the past.

Rachel Maddow also featured a segment on this story last night on her MSNBC show, including an interview with the attorney for Tiller's family, who says he'll move to have the court attach any funds they raise on Roeder's behalf:

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Scott Roeder murdered Dr. George Tiller in cold blood while he was serving as an usher at his church. Roeder, who has close ties with Randall Terry's Operation Rescue is now considering a Justifiable Homicide defense:

WICHITA, Kan. – The suspect in the killing of abortion provider George Tiller is in talks with a prominent attorney who represents anti-abortion protesters and has long advocated justifiable homicide as a legal defense in such cases.

Scott Roeder, 51, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated assault charges in the May 31 shooting death of Tiller in the foyer of his Wichita church. The Kansas City, Mo., man has refused to discuss his case, but he has told The Associated Press that Tiller's killing was justified to save "the lives of unborn children."

Roeder has court-appointed defense attorneys, but he apparently has now turned to Michael Hirsh, the lawyer who represented Paul Hill on appeal for killing a Florida abortion provider and his bodyguard in 1994. Hill was executed in 2003 after the Florida Supreme Court rejected Hirsh's argument that the judge should have allowed Hill to present to jurors his claim that the killings were justified to prevent abortions.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled in denying Hill's appeal that his motivation would not change the outcome of the case. "As a practical matter, permitting a defendant to vindicate his or her criminal activity in this manner would be an invitation for lawlessness," the justices wrote. Read on...

While the Justifiable Homicide defense in this case is a long shot, I agree with the Florida court's findings. It is clear that an acquittal in the Roeder case would unleash a flurry of violence against abortion providers and the women who seek to exercise their legal rights. The scary part is that this case is being tried in Kansas.

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From The Rachel Maddow Show, June 8, 2009.

Author Frank Schaeffer, former anti-abortion activist, challenges members of the anti-abortion movement to salvage their reputation for caring about life by turning in to the FBI and Justice Department the violent extremists within their ranks.

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Rachel Maddow last night covered the unholy alliance between George Tiller's accused murderer Scott Roeder and the anti-abortion extremists Operation Rescue. Cheryl Sullenger is described as the senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue out of Wichita. Sullenger's name and phone number were found on Roeder's car dash, and records show multiple phone calls between them in recent months. Considering Sullenger's own terrorist history more than a few eyebrows were raised. Heather has the video and more detail in her post, Maddow's devastating expose: Tiller's assassin tied to Operation Rescue.

Maddow's segment featured several video clips of Sullenger, without sound. Those now seem to have been pulled from YouTube but I thought it might be interesting to hear the woman in her own words. In the clip above Sullenger is railing against Nola Foulston, Sedgwick County (Kansas) District Attorney for, according to Sullenger, "abusing the power of the DA’s office by wrongly dismissing 30 criminal charges of illegal abortions against her friend, George Tiller, even though two independent judges determined that there was probable cause to believe that Tiller violated the law". Sullenger wanted to replace her with a more sympathetic to the cause rightwing republican. Dr Tiller would go on trial in March 2009 for misdemeanor charges laid by the state Attorney-General stemming from procedures he performed, alleging he hadn't secured the proper second professional opinions necessary. It turned out he had, and the jury took less than an hour to aquit. Assistant Attorney General Barry Disney's case was tenuous at best, and lacked credible evidence.

The verdict was a blow to the pro-life community in Kansas, but especially enraged the extremist groups who looked on in the courtroom in disbelief.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman takes notes Monday in Sedgwick County District Court, the first day of George Tiller's jury trial in Wichita. (edit: Cheryl Sullenger is sitting to his right.)

And of their sworn enemy Sedgwick County DA Nola Foulston, this was her yesterday.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston announces charges against Scott Roeder during a news conference in front of the Sedgwick County Court House in Wichita, Kan.

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Rachel Maddow last night featured a devastating report on Scott Roeder's overlooked connections to Operation Rescue and his multiple phone conversations with the organization's Cheryl Sullenger in the months leading up to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. She also explored the fact that Roeder had been violating federal laws protecting abortion clinics for some time, and yet authorities had failed to act.

McClatchy has more on the Operation Rescue connection in its report, Operation Rescue adviser helped Tiller suspect track doctor's court dates:

At the time of Roeder’s arrest Sunday afternoon along Interstate 35 in Johnson County, a television station captured the vehicle on video. There on the dashboard was a note that read “Cheryl” and “Op Rescue” with a phone number.

Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue out of Wichita, said Tuesday that she has spoken to Roeder in the past, but she said he would initiate the contact. She said she hasn’t had any recent contact with him.

Sullenger served about two years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in California in 1988. She has since renounced violent action.

She said Roeder’s interest was in court hearings involving Tiller.

“He would call and say, ‘When does court start? When’s the next hearing?’ ” Sullenger said. “I was polite enough to give him the information. I had no reason not to. Who knew? Who knew, you know what I mean?”

Morevoer, as Maddow reported in even more detail, the federal government had the power to stop the terrorism and threats of violence to abortion clinics under the FACE, or Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Dr. Tiller's death could have been avoided had the government simply enforced the laws they had on the books. Amy Goodman made the same point in a guest blog on Air America's site, Amy Goodman: Dr. George Tiller Didn’t Have To Die. From the article:

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Rachel Maddow runs down the list of the people or groups that are praising the death of Dr. George Tiller and lauding his murderer Scott Roeder, as a hero. Among them:

Steve Deace:

Are babies today in Kansas safer today than they ere yesterday while George Tiller was alive and still taking in oxygen. Yeah, is the answer to the question. Maybe the fact that we have a lawless society that has not protected these babies from this infanticide created the Scott Roeders of the world, who in very John Brown-like fashion, illegally took matters into his own hands. Saying that if the system will not deal with an evil, then to Hell with the system.

David Leach:

Leach said when human law conflicts with God’s Laws, “we ought to obey God rather than man.”

He will not “advocate” that anyone go out and kill someone who performs abortions, but his “mind remains open on the question.”

“So while I am waiting for more dialogue, I must say that so far, the Bible discussion I have seen overwhelmingly supports anyone willing to sacrifice everything in order to physically stop an abortionist from killing thousands of babies,” he said.

Leach is no stranger to controversy. In the mid-90s, Leach’s association with the accused killer of a Florida abortion doctor helped persuade U.S. marshals to guard the Planned Parenthood clinic in Des Moines.

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Ezra Klein sees the Tiller assassination in its political context:

As The American Prospect's Ann Friedman writes, this has to be understood in context. It is the final, decisive act in "an ongoing campaign of intimidation and harassment against someone who was providing completely legal health-care services." That campaign stretched over decades of protests, lawsuits, violence, and, finally, murder. The different elements were not always orchestrated. But the intent remained constant: To counter the absence of a statute that would make Tiller's work illegal with enough intimidation to render it impossible.

This was, in other words, a political act. Tiller was murdered so that those in his line of work would be intimidated. In conversations with folks yesterday, I heard well-meaning variants on the idea that it would be unseemly to push legislation in the emotional aftermath of Tiller's execution. I disagree. Roeder was acting in direct competition with the United States Congress. And it's quite likely that he changed the status quo. Legislative language and judicial rulings had made abortive procedures legal and thus accessible. Yesterday's killing was meant to render abortive procedures unsafe for doctors to conduct and thus inaccessible.

If a woman cannot get an abortion because no nearby providers are willing to assume the risk of performing it, the actual outcome is precisely the same as if the procedure were illegal. Roeder has, in all likelihood, made abortion less accessible. It would be, in my view, a perfectly appropriate response for the Congress to decisively prove his action not only ineffectual, but, in a broad sense, counterproductive.

That's not to suggest fast-tracking legislation that radically transforms the county's uneasy consensus. But there are plenty of remedies that speak to the question of access alone: Bills that make abortion centers safer and help poor women afford treatment, for instance. We can't stop Scott Roeder from killing George Tiller. But we can stop him from having his intended effect on a woman's ability to choose.