I am writing in response to Rabbi Leslie Gutterman’s June 23 Commentary piece, “How violent speech can lead to murder.” How could an educated, religious man come to the conclusion that because many people have spoken truthfully about the late-term abortionist George Tiller that they were somehow responsible for his death?

He cites Bill O’Reilly, who I find to be very fair and who has the right, as has every American, to express his opinion about a very controversial topic. I watch Mr. O’Reilly almost every night and he has never promoted anyone’s murder. To even suggest that somehow Bill O’Reilly and his accurate reporting of the facts contributes to people’s bad decisions and behaviors is absurd.

Rabbi Gutterman writes that “Nazi speeches and writings created an atmosphere and environment making the forbidden permissible.” It was much more than speeches! Adolph Hitler was a power-hungry dictator who did not value human life at all.

I wonder where Rabbi Gutterman was when Carrie Prejean (Miss California) was viciously attacked by Perez Hilton. Wouldn’t his vulgar video on You Tube classify as “hate speech”? Where was he when David Letterman joked about the imagined rape of Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter? Couldn’t that also be referred to as “hate speech”?

Or could it be that there are two sets of rules: one for pro-abortion liberals and one for pro-life conservatives?

The Jewish and Christian God is clear in Jeremiah 1:5, in the Hebrew scriptures: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you.” God does not expect anyone to destroy the life that he has created and whom he has intimately known before their birth.

Murder is always wrong. Nobody had the right to end Dr.Tiller’s life. In the same vein, he did not have the right to end the lives of those innocent babies.

When people become expendable because they are inconvenient to others, we are all at risk. We have a duty to protect those who are most likely to be taken advantage of.

NANCY DUSKA

West Greenwich