KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - An anti-abortion activist who murdered one of America's few late-term abortion providers was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison in a case that galvanized both sides of the bitter U.S. debate over abortion.
Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert said 52-year-old Scott Roeder would serve a minimum mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for at least 50 years.
Roeder was convicted in January of first-degree murder for shooting to death Wichita, Kansas abortion provider George Tiller.
Tiller was one of a few U.S. providers of abortions on foetuses past 20 weeks of gestation. Roeder admitted to stalking the doctor for months before shooting Tiller in the face as the doctor attended church on a Sunday last May.
Roeder told the court that he had to kill Tiller to save unborn babies.
At Thursday's sentencing, Tiller family lawyer Lee Thompson called the murder an act of "domestic terrorism," and said Tiller's belief in women's rights led him to continue his practice despite the constant threat of violence.
"He respected and trusted the right of women to make their own decisions," Thompson said. "He was committed to it. He gave his life to the rights of women."
Psychologist George Hough, who examined and interviewed Roeder, said Roeder saw himself as a foot soldier in a war against abortion, and felt compelled to kill Tiller.
Roeder himself said as much in a statement he read to the court before his sentencing.
"It is no secret George Tiller killed unborn children for a living. I stopped him so he could not kill again," Roeder said. "It was the most agonizing and most stressful decision I've ever had to make."
(Reporting by Carey Gillam, editing by Will Dunham)
