WICHITA, Kan. -Jurors hearing the case of a man charged with killing prominent abortion provider Dr. George Tiller heard the word abortion for the first time Monday, when an usher testified about seeing protesters at the church the doctor had attended.

District Attorney Nola Foulston first said the word abortion during the second day of testimony in the trial of Scott Roeder when she asked usher Keith Martin about numerous protests at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, where Tiller was shot to death on May 31.

On the first day of testimony in the trial of Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion activist accused of murdering Dr. George Tiller, a Wichita, Kan., jury heard tearful testimony today from a fellow congregant who was 40 feet away when Tiller was shot in his church's vestibule last May.

Kathy Wegner, the church's youth director who made the first 911 call after the shooting, said this morning she saw a flash and heard a sound like a balloon popping.

[Via Media Monitor Jon] Wow. Joan Walsh went on the O'Reilly Factor tonight having publicly vowed to be well-prepared to defend the reproductive rights of women and the legality of Dr. George Tiller's clinical practice, and truly doled out some major ownage without raising her voice or raising the temperature at all. It was an artful performance of talking headery, and what can I say? By the end of their two segments, O'Reilly is reduced to a gibbering, shout-faced wreck.

In the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the abortion doctor shot dead in front of his church on May 31, a Village Voicewriter had set the blogosphere abuzz about Joe Scarborough. Why had Scarborough's morning MSNBC news show, "Morning Joe," been silent on the sensational murder story? Was it because Scarborough.

With the slaying Sunday of Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation's few late-term abortion doctors, supporters of abortion rights are questioning whether there is a connection between his death and the rhetoric of the abortion opponents' movement.

Dr. George Tiller Murdered in Wichita, Kansas, Suspect in Custody

Yesterdaythe reproductive health community was devastated to learn of the murderof Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider subjected to decadesof anti-choice harassment (and shot in the arms before). KansasCity.comhas more on the alleged killer: "Scott P. Roeder, 51, of Merriam, wasarrested on Interstate 35 nearGardner nearly four hours after Tiller was shot to death just after 10a.

Posted June 1, 2009

Dr. George Tiller was no stranger to violence. Before he was killed while attending church on Sunday, the Kansas physician both vilified and admired for his reproductive health practice, which was known for performing late-term abortions, was shot outside his Wichita clinic in 1993.

A few days after the shooting, The Times published the following editorial in response.

Saturday August 21, 1993

My late father and I share the blame (with many others) for the murder of Dr. George Tiller the abortion doctor gunned down on Sunday. Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) and repented of my former hate-filled rhetoric I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America.

In the late 1970s my evangelical pro-life leader father Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C.

I have two friends who had to make the heartbreaking decision to fly to Kansas for a late term abortion. These were not women who were sloppy with birth control or didn't desperately want to have children. As with many of the women who visited Dr. George Tiller, they had found out after their amnio tests that the babies they were carrying would be horribly deformed.

Amnios, which test for abnormal chromosomal problems, usually takes place between 14-16 weeks of a pregnancy and then it's usually another week before the diagnosis.

The man detained by Kansas police as a "person of interest" in their probe of the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller has been identified as Scott Roeder.

I felt just sick today when I saw the bulletin about the murder of Dr. George Tiller.

Sicker still when I saw the "sympathy" letter issued by officials at Operation Rescue, the virulent anti-abortion organization that dogged this poor man for the past two decades. The statement said, "We pray for Mr. Tiller's family."

They had better say a few prayers for their own souls. They had better pray for forgiveness for relentlessly working to make this man a target.

Dr George Tiller, one of only three US doctors still carrying out the procedure, had been targeted before in violent attacks.

He was killed by a lone gunman in the lobby of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita just after 10am, a few minutes after he had been handing out orders of service.

Dr. George Tiller was one of the few U.S. physicians that performed late-term abortions.

Laura Shaneyfelt, an attorney with the firm of Monnat and Spurrier, confirmed Tiller's death to CNN.

The 67-year-old doctor was one of the few U.S. physicians who still performed late-term abortions. He survived a 1993 shooting outside his clinic.

Wichita police said they were searching for a powder-blue Ford Taurus in connection with the killing, which took place outside Reformation Lutheran Church shortly after 10 a.m.

One of the nation's most controversial abortion doctors was gunned down  as he walked into his Kansas church for Sunday services, the Wichita Eagle reports.