I think you put too much importance on tolerance and accepting other's view-points. The simple fact is that one side is right and one is wrong. Either Dr. tiller did or did not deserve his fate. Either abortion is right or abortion is wrong. There is no 'happy medium' in the abortion debate.
In this artical you say we need to put aside our differences and see eachother's point-of-view, but you also say it is imposible to get everyone to agree. Instead of all agreeing to disagree, maybe we should actualy try settle the confict(a popular vote?). One group is going to win, and one group is going to lose; their ar no shades of gray when it comes to morality

'winning' is making a decision for yourself. It's a medical procedure. Is being sterilized 'wrong' or 'right'? What about kidney transplants? 'Right'? Plastic surgery? 'Wrong'?

Children deserve to be wanted and loved. I have never had nor will I ever have an abortion. In fact, I have struggled with infertility for many years and am finally healthily pregnant. (The previous poster will probably think it's 'wrong' because we used donor egg and donor sperm so that a child would finally live to be born.) But just as I strongly feel that reproductive medicine should be made available for people who are infertile, I feel that women who do not want to give birth should never be forced to.

Here in Europe we don't have this same conflict that you have in the US. Although I do think it's possible that some people may see legal abortion as self-explanatory, I really think few women who themselves undergo the procedure do it lightly. No one does it for fun, you know.

Anyone who actaully does take abortion lightly and has multiple abortions ( kind of like a form of birth control) is usually un- fit to be a parent anyway. Why force a child into the world so that they may be un-cared for and perpetuate the cylcle of poverty and poor choices? I work with many preganant teenagers and they are all headed for lives of welfare and reliance on others to care for thier children. Perhaps having babies was not the right choice for these teens. Perhaps it affects us all negatively. The correlation between increase in access to abortions and decrease in crime is fully substantiated. It is only a correlation but it gets me thinking. Now that these babies are here I have complete love for them, but part of what makes humans unique is our ability to plan for a future and anticipate outcomes. If the teens I work with could have adequately predicted thier struggles, they likely would not have chosen to bring a helpless child into the world when they do not have the means to care for the child and the rest of us would not have the burden of paying for millions of unwanted children. Its a cruel world for these kids. Anyone who loves dogs ( I rescue them) is all for spaying and nuetering, I think people who honestly love children are all for preventing lives of devastating circumstances whenever possible. Hello birth control and in some circumstances abortion. Of coarse this is all predicated on the belief that a fetus is not a human let alone a child. I respect that others differ on the moment of life. Just my two cents. Oh and please don't think I'm comparing children to dogs... it was just a comment on caring for the best interest of all species.

I feel that Reverence for Life is the only consciousness that will allow us, as human beings, to survive as a species, and it is our lack of Reverence for Life that has put us on this downward and accelerating spiral of self-destruction.
I feel that the "assassination" of Dr Tiller is a tragedy, and I also feel that the surgical "assassination" of millions of unborn humans is also a tragedy, and it is curious to me that the one death is lamented but the many are not. I feel that we should have equal respect for all of life, not just that human life which has successfully emerged from the womb of its mother. The Mother, the image of nurturing and caring, allowing the life to be scraped from her womb. What sense of Reverence and caring are we offering to our youth through this example? How can we teach them reverence and respect for Life, and for each other, when their mothers are tearing the life from their own bodies?
We say that our bodies are our property, and yet are they truly? Yes, we make choices that nurture or detract from our health, we are responsible for the care of our bodies, and yet we did not create them, we are born into them, and we leave them at the end of our time on earth, we cannot take them with us when we go. I submit that our bodies are not our own but they are on loan to us, to serve as the vehicles in which we can fulfill our reason for being. If we treat our own bodies with Reverence also, then we become an instrument of that greater Reverence for all.
We know that sexual activity, sexual intercourse, carries with it the possibility of conception. Young people are taught how to properly don a condom, or the girl gets birth-control pills, but do we really teach our young people about their sexuality? Do we teach them about their life force, about caring for each other, about the deep caring and connection that can come from a sexual exchange between two people that respect and honor each other? Our sexuality is important, and needs to be honored, and the most beneficial sexual experiences occur between two people who have a deep caring for and commitment to each other, which I expect is why so many cultures consider sex outside of marriage to be discouraged. However, marriage alone is not a guarantee of the level of connection, and I think that it would be very beneficial to also teach our younger adults about sacred sexuality, about the cycles of the woman so that both know when conception is most likely, so that the man can know when he might need to withhold his ejaculation, so that in their exchange both individuals are acting with conscious awareness of both what they are doing and what are the most likely consequences of their actions. If pregnancy does occur then a loving community that would be willing to assist and support parents who felt that they could not personally care for a child could eliminate the need to "destroy" an unborn child. Writing these words, it makes me realize how callous we have become in considering the destruction of human life. If we are destroying an animal, then we say what we are doing, "destroying" or "putting down". If we are destroying a human being then we try to make it sound acceptable through the terms that we use.
Reverence for Life is Reverence for all Life, no matter what its outer form. Through Reverence we will not only nurture Life but we will also nurture our own survival and well-being.

The irony of a "pro-life" murderer is too much, and horrifying. In a perfect world...well, I guess we humans wouldn't be here! For better or for worse, children are curious and sexual beings, and they also lack the capacity to foresee and fully weigh the future consequences of their present actions. By the way, they also get horny, and have sex, frequently without birth control, because they think it won't happen to them, or they might feel uncomfortable admitting to themselves (let alone their parents) that they're sexually active, and there they are with fully-functioning sexual organs and they get pregnant! Actually, alot of adults engage in this kind of behavior, and then of course , there are the "unplanned pregnancies". None of us are perfect, and it doesn't necessarily mean that we lack reverence for life. I take objection to a few other things stated earlier by others- a pregnancy does NOT a mother make.Even having previously mothered, a pregnancy now does not automatically classify you as a mother to that fetus, as many adoptive parents will state. You may elect to give birth to that child, but mothering is a function, a role, a relationship. As long as humans have been on the planet, it's my guess that women have had pregnancies that they couldn't/wouldn't sustain for a whole host of reasons (food shortages, seasonal hardships, poor health,bad omens etc). These are our bodies; they are not on loan. We can and will continue to make choices about what we do with them,as every man on this planet does, for good or ill, and when we die, we all know what happens to them- no controversy there. Finally, personally, I see little point in forcing women to give birth to children they do not want. I agree with Dr. Lerner that we all hold very powerful beliefs on this subject and there are very few right or wrong answers. I've spent my entire professional life working with children born to women that are drug addicted, mentally ill and otherwise ill-suited to the role of Mother or parent. The child always suffers, and society is left holding the pieces. Abortion can be a rational, practical, compassionate and selfless act. Most importantly, this choice cannot be made by anyone but the woman in question. When we lose control over our bodies, worse things happen, as history has amply demonstrated.