From Minnesota prison, anti-abortion activist praises Tiller’s killing

As the trial against Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist who gunned down Dr. George Tiller last year, gets under way, another anti-abortion activist who attempted to murder Tiller is praising Roeder’s actions from her prison cell in Minnesota.

Shelley Shannon, who is serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca, Minn., for opening fire on Tiller in outside his clinic in 1993, sent fellow anti-abortion activist Dave Leach an email to give to the press on Wednesday.

“He needed to be killed for the sake of justice,” she wrote, before citing verses from the Bible, according to the Associated Press. “Whatever happens in the Kansas courtroom, justice was done on May 31, AD 2009.”

Leach is an Iowa anti-abortion activist who has drafted a defense of Tiller’s murder (see coverage of Leach at our sister site, Iowa Independent. ):

We proclaim that whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child. We assert that if Scott Roeder did in fact kill George Tiller, his use of lethal force was justifiable provided it was carried out for the purpose of defending the lives of unborn children. Therefore, he ought to be acquitted of the charges against him.

The trial, to be held in Wichita, Kans., has just finished jury selection.