“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

On Sunday, May 31, in Wichita, KS, a 51-year-old man named Scott Roeder allegedly shot 67-year-old Dr. George Tiller as Tiller stood in the foyer of his church while Tiller’s wife sang in the church choir. This brutal murder has thrust the issues of abortion and domestic extremism back into the national spotlight.

The Kansas doctor had long been a prominent target of anti-abortion activists because he was one of the few physicians in the country willing to perform the “late-term” abortions allowed under Kansas Law. These are abortions of viable fetuses after the 21st week of gestation in cases in which carrying the pregnancy to term would either endanger the mother’s life or cause a “substantial and irreversible impairment” of a major bodily function.

Tiller had already survived being shot in both arms in 1993; in 1986, his clinic was bombed; and in 1991, it was blockaded. Tiller had to be protected by federal marshals and his clinic was fortified by bulletproof glass and security guards.

This past weekend, Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail where he is being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. Tiller. In his phone conversation, Roeder told the AP, “I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.” When asked by the AP what he meant and if he was referring to another shooting, Roeder refused to elaborate.

It has been well-established that under the Bush administration the U.S. government willfully administered torture to foreign nationals captured in the Middle East under the guise of “information gathering.” On a recent talk show, Dick Cheney, although he refrained from using the word “torture,” referred to the treatment of detainees in the prison at Guantánamo Bay and stated, “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the number three man in al Qaeda, the man who planned the attacks of 9/11, provided us with a wealth of information. There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source. So, it’s been a remarkably successful effort. I think the results speak for themselves.”

So, now we are faced with a conundrum. If Scott Roeder has knowledge of “many” pending events similar to the murder for which he stands accused, and if the techniques used to obtain information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were so successful, and legal, at least according to the supporters of torture, why are we not applying those same techniques to Roeder in order to obtain information that might possibly save someone’s life?

It couldn’t possibly be that the same right wing extremists who support torture also form the core of the anti-abortion movement, could it? How many of these people, I wonder, who willingly support the torturing of suspected Al Qaeda members to gain information that might”save American lives” would also advocate the torture of Scott Roeder in order to “save American lives?”

Where the hell is Jack Bauer when you need him?