I am reminded of Matthew 25;41-46 which reads:

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

So as I did a lot of self reflection on Sunday, I kept coming back to this feeling of guilt. Why did I feel guilty? What role did I play in the tragic events of Sunday? Then I realized that was just it. I am a political person, but whenever it came to abortion I turned the other cheek. If someone was railing for either side of the issue, I would just passively nod my head and tell them I understood where they were coming from. I was lying to myself in the hopes that maybe I could just not take a position. I was acting like so many of our elected leaders who sit in their seats in the Kansas House or Senate as one conservative after another puts forward a bill and/or an amendment trying to undermine a woman’s right to choose. Don’t get me wrong, there are many excellent elected representatives who take to the well every time the conservatives bring this up. I just know that there are more of them, like me, who say “this is not my fight.”

I can sit here today and tell you that I will no longer linger in neutral when it comes to the issue of abortion. If the political assassin who gunned down Dr. Tiller in cold blood on Sunday had hoped for his bullet to travel beyond Dr. Tiller’s innocent body, into the hearts and minds of fellow radicals or those teetering on the edge of spewing their own form of hatred against a woman’s right to choose, then he was successful. His bullet carried on far beyond that church. It struck me over a hundred miles away, square in the conscience, and awakened my desire to finally take a side, to no longer nod my head conveniently.

I truly feel the meaning of the words that follow this post, written by John Donne over 400 years ago. Many in Kansas politics on both sides of the aisle have convinced themselves that Tiller was an island. That he could take care of himself. He made his own choices and he alone must live with the consequences. How wrong we all were. Dr. George Tiller stood in defense of a right that is protected under the constitution. And the constitution is not something to be applied to our arguments only when it fits our own moral codes. It is a document that should bind us as a country. He stood alone, he stood with supporters, but most of all he remained standing no matter what the fight. I wish I had known him. The only thing that I can do from my vantage point is to make a commitment to my friends, my colleagues and most importantly the three women who live in my house that never again will I passively say “I see where you are coming from.” With any luck that assassin’s bullet will travel through Kansas, the United States and the rest of the world and it will strike everyone who lingered somewhere in between the two arguments.

As John Donne said,

“No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”