The decision by eBay to remove items from its site aimed at raising funds for the alleged murderer of Kansas doctor George Tiller was short-sighted and inconsistent with previous actions, Des Moines anti-abortion activist and organizer of the fundraiser Dave Leach said.

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Des Moines anti-abortion activist Dave Leach. (Video screengrab)

Leach and a group of anti-abortion activists posted a dozen items on the auction site in order to raise money to hire a private attorney for Scott Roeder, who is accused of murdering Tiller because he performed abortions. Around a dozen items were posted, including graphic artwork drawn by fellow inmates and signed by Roeder as well as an “Army of God Edition” of Leach’s newsletter which lists ways to damage abortion buildings from putting super glue in locks to following two simple bomb recipes.

After five hours, eBay removed 10 items, with the final two items removed by late Monday afternoon. The company said in a statement that the anti-abortion memorabilia violated its listing polices which prohibit items being posted that “promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views.”

Leach said the site allows plenty of postings that fit that description.

“You sell World War II stuff, which ‘glorifies’ our role in it,” Leach said in a letter to eBay executives obtained by The Iowa Independent on Wednesday. “You do not censor things which honor police, who exist for their capacity for judicious violence. So it seems to me that your statement cannot be made sense of, without a common sense appeal to the context of violence.”

In August, Leach drafted a legal brief of Roeder claiming the necessity defense, which argues that a crime may be permissible if it is committed in order to avoid a much greater harm. The money raised would go toward finding an attorney willing to argue that defense.

Leach’s hope is that refusing to contest the facts of the case will leave no other option to the judge but to let the jury hear argument regarding whether Roeder was forced to commit murder in order to stop an “unlawful harm,” meaning abortion. That argument has been tried before and has repeatedly been rejected by judges regarding crimes committed to stop abortion because abortion is legal, and therefore protected by the law.

“[O]ur project has nothing to do with ‘promoting or glorifying violence,’” Leach said in his letter. “It is all about moving judges in abortion prevention trials to stop censoring the only trial issue, and the only defense, from the hearing of the jury. Does that sound to you like a fanatical, extremist, violence-glorifying, radical goal?”

Leach argued with the assertion that his postings “glorified violence.”

“For example, would you accuse the Bible of ‘promoting violence against an individual’ when such individual is slaughtering thousands every year?” Leach said. “How about items which honor police, who exist for the purpose of inflicting violence upon individuals when justified?”

In a note accompanying the letter, Leach said he and his associates may pursue other options in order to go forward with the auction, saying he has looked into purchasing software to make the auction a reality.

“We have had enough publicity, I think, to attract buyers,” he said. “Especially if we do it soon.”

Leach, who has received his fair share of bad press over the years regarding his association with radical anti-abortion movement, said he is comforted that Jesus received bad press as well.

“But I have been pondering the ‘bad press’ Jesus got from the Pharisees, and how he handled it, and a strategy remains alive in my mind how to turn this all around into a public move to end abortion,” he said.

Leach publishes a newsletter called “Prayer & Action News” that describes itself as “a trumpet call for the Armies of God to assemble.”

Roeder was a contributor to the publication, which advocates the doctrine of justifiable homicide in the case of abortion doctors. Along with Leach, the auction was organized by Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. Since Roeder’s arrest in May he’s been in regular contact with what The Wichita Eagle describes as “a who’s who of anti-abortion militants.”