Sarah Seltzer:
The last time a doctor was murdered in cold blood for providing abortion care to women, we were not in the digital age. While the pro-choice community in the 90s reacted to Dr. Bernard Slepian’s murder with the same outrage and hurt as it has this week to Dr. George Tiller’s, the Internet has provided us with tools that have enabled us to more effectively shape the discourse.
Yes, many TV shows and mainstream pundits (ahem! Chris Matthews and Will Saletan, popular offenders) have trotted out the expected all-male panels and high-minded philosophical musings in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy. But a strong counter movement calling the incident “terrorism” and pointing out the the far-right “pro-life” movement’s rampant hypocrisy has emerged online. We owe this to an engaged, savvy and active blogosphere and twittersphere of feminists that have been able to launch accurate, appropriate language into circulation and gather evidence that this assassination was part of a larger pattern of purposeful hate and intimidation.
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