What would Jesus do?

Dr. George Tiller from Wichita Kansas, a physician who performed legal late-term abortions, often when a woman's life or health was at risk, was shot and killed in church this morning. This is the most recent in a very long history of attacks and murders of physicians who perform abortions. I have read varied comments on varied blogs today where people have been suggesting that this was a good thing. And I will be far from surprised if the person who is finally charged and convicted for this crime thought they were doing God's will. What I can never figure out is how it is that people who consider themselves followers of Jesus ever find violence acceptable? I'm reminded of the post that I wrote last fall on Evangelicals and Torture. We progressive Christians are supposedly known for tossing out parts of the Bible we don't like. My question is "what part of "thou shalt not kill" don't you understand?" No wonder the new athiests (and others) think Christianity sucks. And of course, like the gay marriage debate, the Biblical evidence for the idea that life begins at conception is not especially clear (it is symbolic language about God forming us in the womb,) nor are there any proscriptions against abortion in the Bible. And yet, the clearest messages from Jesus were along the lines of "love your enemy as you love yourself," which, in the parlance of one of my favorite bumper stickers, means probably not killing them. As a society and democracy, we have decided that when life begins is a matter for science to determine, and whether to end a pregnancy before then is a matter for a woman to decide for herself. As a fellow progressive faith blogger put it "democracy does not have an opt-out option."