One more post on this, also unfortunately from DailyKos:

Scholar Carol Mason is the author of Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-life Politics. She has written and essay that makes some important points:

Sunday's murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas raises again the question of what it means to defend life through killing. When militant antiabortionists began bombing clinics and shooting doctors in the 1980s and 1990s, law enforcement officials looked for some conspiracy among the perpetrators. They did not find one. What they needed to look for was a cultural explanation for how members of a movement dedicated to defending life began to kill for life. Dr. Tiller's assassination signals the return of an apocalyptic zeal that has lately been directed elsewhere.

So it is important to understand the power of apocalyptic thinking when it is grafted on top of anger, bigotry, and conspiracy theories that portray named scapegoats. The militant anti-abortion movement sees itself as defending God and country. While less militant anti-abortion activists express their horror at the assassination of Dr. Tiller, others express their delight and consider Tiller's death an act of justice and an offering to God.

According to Mason:

The late twentieth century rise of antiabortion violence grew out of a sense that America was severing its ties to God and all things good. To prolifers, abortion was a sign of national inhumanity and increasing antichristian barbarism. Racist prolifers argued that abortion was a bourgeoning Jewish-engineered industry geared toward a white Christian genocide and praised those who killed abortion providers.

Abortion, Apocalypse, and "Killing for Life"
by cberlet
Thu Jun 04, 2009 at 02:56:49 PM PDT
[link to www.dailykos.com]