It’s time to step on my soapbox. What’s the occasion? The murder of Dr. George Tiller, a doctor here in Kansas who was made nationally famous by irate anti-abortion groups. He was shot today in church. In front of his family.

It would be really easy to rant about how hypocritical I find these fundamentalist groups that rage about the sanctity of life, but have no problem promoting violence to assert their views, or who support the death penalty. It’s tempting to go into the rage I feel about people who use religion as an excuse for hate, violence, and murder.

Trust me, I’m fighting the urge.

Let’s talk instead, however, about Dr. Tiller. Whether or not you believe in a woman’s right to choose, or when you believe human life begins, the courage and dedication that Dr. Tiller showed for what he believed in is nothing short of extraordinary.

Dr. Tiller has been shot before. He’s had his clinic bombed. He has had his life threatened on a daily basis for a very long time.

As tragic as today’s senseless murder is, it can’t come as a shock to his family. It wouldn’t have come to a shock to him.

And yet, he continued in his medical practice. A part of that practice was providing abortions for women who made that choice. Abortion was not even close to the entirety of his practice– but of course that’s the part everyone became fixated on.

He believed in a woman’s right to choose, and he was willing to die for that right.

He was a father, grandfather, husband, and brother. But today he died for a woman’s right to choose.

There’s not much in this world I would be willing to die for. My children.

Whether or not you believe as he did, perhaps today we can mourn the loss of a person whose personal convictions regarding the rights of others was so strong he was willing to lie down his life. Under the most dire of conditions, he did not turn away from his convictions.

And then let’s deal with the shame of living in a country where having that dissenting opinion had to cost him his life.