An anti-abortion activist who murdered one of America's late-term abortion providers was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for at least 50 years in a Wichita, Kansas courtroom on Thursday.

Scott Roeder, 52, was convicted on Jan. 29 of first-degree murder and aggravated assault for shooting dead Wichita-based abortion provider George Tiller as the doctor attended church services last May.

The sentence means Roeder will likely die in prison.

Tiller's killing has been a rallying point for both abortion opponents and abortion rights supporters.

"I believe the American people are finally waking up that when a woman has an abortion she is killing her unborn child," said anti-abortion activist Donald Spitz, one of Roeder’s supporters who hoped for leniency at the killer’s sentencing.

But Tiller family lawyer called the murder an act of "domestic terrorism."

"He (Tiller) respected and trusted the right of women to make their own decisions," said Tiller’s family lawyer Lee Thompson. "He was committed to it. He gave his life to the rights of women."

Tiller was the fourth abortion doctor and the eighth person connected to an abortion clinic to be murdered for their work since 1993.