Many of the mainstream groups opposing abortion have rightly denounced the slaying of Dr. George Tiller, recognizing the killing has tarnished the anti-abortion movement. Yet for all the people who recently spit invectives about the sanctity of life before President Obama’s visit to the University of Notre Dame in May, the denunciations of Tiller’s cold-blooded killing – in church, no less – have been fewer and more low-key.

While no mainstream group has outright endorsed the killing, some others have come close.

“Who will mourn for this man?” asked Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum Ministries. “Perhaps the bigger question is this: Who will mourn for the more than 60,000 babies that Dr. George Tiller brutally murdered?”

The Journal Gazette was flooded with letters to the editor from people claiming to be pro-life who were angry that Notre Dame would honor the pro-choice president. We have yet to receive a single letter denouncing the murder of Dr. George Tiller.

“I wonder how can the people who say they are pro-life turn around and say it is justifiable,” said Dr. George Klopfer, the physician who performs abortions at the Fort Wayne Women’s Health Organization.

“It amazes me that someone would have the audacity to go into Dr. Tiller’s place of worship – where there were a lot of other people – and shoot him just because they disagree with him,” Klopfer said. “The bottom line is he (the killer) did more for the pro-choice movement than the pro-life.”

The person who pulled the trigger and shot Tiller while he was handing out church bulletins in the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church just as the Sunday worship service began is most culpable. But people who claimed to be pro-life and still spewed messages of hatred for or suggested violence against Tiller or anyone else disagreeing with them over abortion need to examine their rhetoric.

Even those with calmer rhetoric too often spread misinformation about abortion. For example, Planned Parenthood is not in business making millions of dollars by performing abortions. Planned Parenthood of Indiana is a not-for-profit organization that provides reproductive health services to men and women.

Abortion is a very small segment of the services it provides. Ensuring women are able to get an annual examination and Pap smear is the most common activity at any of the 34 Planned Parenthood locations in Indiana.

Only three of the organization’s Indiana centers offer abortion, none in northeast Indiana.

Klopfer wonders why he doesn’t hear more outrage from those in the pro-life movement over Tiller’s slaying or the loss of innocent lives during the U.S. war in Iraq or the many children in Chicago killed this past year.

His questions are reasonable. Too often the shouts of those who care only about ending abortion drown out all others. The shouting makes it impossible for people to work toward reducing the need for abortion and improving life for everyone.