Two letters in The Wichita Eagle this morning. One, from Scott E. Blades, insists "George Tiller was no different from his killer." The chances that Blades knows anything about Tiller beyond what he's sucked up from the papers and talk radio are nil. The other letter is from a physician, Gayle Stephens, who knew Tiller and has something to say worth repeating:

The best part of my life was lived in Kansas, especially Wichita, and I still think of myself as a Kansan. I knew George Tiller well and his father, Jack, even better.

As a physician, I feel profound disappointment that a family physician can be assassinated in Wichita and local physicians can be silent and largely absent from public discourse. If a firefighter or police officer were murdered in the line of duty, their colleagues would rise in anger and protest, call for justice, and attend a public funeral in uniform. They would vow to seek justice and pledge support for the victim's family.

Tiller was a legitimate family physician who practiced medicine as well as performing abortions. He was not a butcher, profiteer, opportunist or fraud. His murder diminishes us all, and nobody is safer or better off because he is dead.

Kansas has a rich history of family doctors, and history will be kinder to Tiller than to the forces that destroyed him or those who stood by silently. His friends, colleagues and beneficiaries cannot allow his memory to be characterized by those who despised him and what he stood for. They must report a fuller public narrative of his life.

Tiller could have used more testimonies like this while he was alive, but modesty, respect for his privacy, and a general reluctance to grapple with assholes are reasons why they weren't much in evidence. Plus most people, starting with his accusers, weren't inclined to look, or consider. In some ways, that is typical of the abortion conflict. The anti-choice side seeks to impose absolute rules on everyone regardless of context; for the pro-choice side context is everything. Absolute certainty regardless of context or consequences is impossible to argue with, as it doesn't allow any grounds for compromise. We should be smart enough to reject any such irrational propositions, but the persistence of the anti-choice movement shows that we aren't.