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EBay removes anti-abortion memorabilia from site
2009-11-02
WICHITA, Kan. - Online auction house eBay has removed items that were posted for sale by anti-abortion activists trying to raise money for defense of a man accused of killing a Kansas abortion provider, the company said Monday. Supporters of Scott Roeder - one in Kansas City, Mo. and the other in Des Moines, Iowa - posted various items late Sunday in separate eBay auctions including an Army of God manual, an underground publication for anti-abortion militants that describes ways to shut down clinics. After about five hours, eBay removed 10 items, activists said. The final two items were removed by late Monday afternoon. San Jose, Calif.-based eBay said the anti-abortion memorabilia violated its listing polices. "Today, eBay removed several listings on our site that violated several of our policies including our offensive materials' policy. This policy prohibits items that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views," eBay said in a statement. The company would not say how many or which items it removed. Roeder is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the May 31 shooting of Dr. George Tiller at his Wichita church. Anti-abortion activists are trying to raise money for Roeder, who has been appointed public defenders but was considering hiring private lawyers. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Among the last items removed from eBay was a worn Bible once owned by Shelley Shannon, an Oregon woman who shot and wounded Tiller in 1993 and was later convicted in a series of abortion clinic arsons and bombings. The other was a signed book of religious teachings written by Ohio anti-abortion activist Michael Bray. Those two items were posted by Iowa activist Dave Leach who said he escaped the initial purge by eBay because he deliberately used misspellings and other devices to make the items difficult to find. "Because of eBay's promise to take it down, all I wanted to accomplish is to make it so it would at least survive long enough for eBay's lawyers to look at my article and hopefully decide I am not their enemy," Leach said Monday. In the description of the Bible, which had 13 bidders and a high bid of approximately $60 before it was taken down, Leach wrote that Shannon had given it to him a decade ago when she was transferred from state to federal prison. "Our goal is an end to vio-lence (cq) against abortionists, and against babies, through restoring the Constitutional Right to Trial by Jury, even in abortion prevention cases. Proceeds from this auction will be devoted to that end," the listing said. Roeder's supporters said they want jurors to hear the so-called necessity defense, which claims the killing was necessary to prevent a greater harm like abortion. "I am not doing this because I enjoy the publicity as it has panned out so far," Leach said after his postings were taken down. "I wish I could talk with people. This whole thing is a censorship. The judge censors the defense from the jury and here is eBay censoring our efforts to try to end this censorship." Kansas City activist Regina Dinwiddie said the 10 items she posted raised several hundred dollars from at least a dozen bidders before eBay removed them. She vowed Roeder's supporters will continue to try to raise funds for his defense. "I am very disappointed in eBay," Dinwiddie said. "I thought that was the last bastion of free enterprise in America with no political viewpoint, but I see I was mistaken about that." She said other removed items included three drawings commissioned by Roeder in jail and signed by him, a prison cookbook written by Shannon, several anti-abortion books and bumper stickers, and an oil painting by Clayton Waagner, the man who sent hundred of anthrax scare letters to abortion providers in 2001.
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