In Wake Of Planned Parenthood Shootings, Anti-Abortion Activists Who Incite Violence Criticized
In wake of the deadly shootings at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, anti-abortion activists, as well as Republican politicians, are being criticized for their increasingly hate-filled and often false rhetoric against Planned Parenthood.
Although an official motive for the recent shootings that claimed three lives at a Planned Parenthood location in Colorado Springs has not been announced, news outlets are now reporting that the killings were, in fact, politically motivated.
Robert Lewis Dear, 57, surrendered to authorities after a long standoff, and, according to a law enforcement official, allegedly said “no more baby parts” after his arrest, apparently in reference to heavily doctored videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group. The videos claim to show that Planned Parenthood sells tissue from aborted fetuses for profit, but the video footage was found to be so severely manipulated that, according to analyses performed by three teams of forensic experts, they would not hold up in court.
However, despite proof that the videos were heavily edited in order to support a narrative that has proved to be false, and subsequent investigations into Planned Parenthood turned up no wrongdoing, Congress has still launched an official investigation, and the videos have prompted many Republican officials to attempt — sometimes successfully — to defund Planned Parenthood. In addition to abortion services, which make up a reported three percent of services provides, Planned Parenthood provides other, much needed health services for women. Additionally, no tax dollars go towards abortion services, except in the most extreme of cases.
Abortion clinics have long since faced violence, especially in the after effect of the doctored videos. This year alone, arsonists attacked four Planned Parenthood clinics in Washington, California, Illinois, and Louisiana. In the book Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism, authors David S. Cohen and Krysten Connon highlight the violence that many abortion clinics have dealt with in the past.
“Extremists have also thrown butyric acid into clinics, glued clinic locks shut, locked themselves into clinic property using items such as bicycle locks or chains, drilled holes into clinic roofs so that the clinic floods, invaded clinics, vandalized clinics, made threatening phone calls, tried to persuade patients to go to fake clinics, put spikes in driveways, talked outside clinics about bomb-making chemicals, laid down on sidewalks, jumped on cars, camped out in front of clinics for multiple-day stretches, and sent decoy patients into clinics to disrupt business.”
Ilyse Hogue, president of advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America, specifically called out two anti-abortionists in the wake of the Planned Parenthood shooting that left three people dead and nine injured. One was Troy Newman, the president of anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, who, in his book Their Blood Cries Out, specifically advocated for the execution of doctors who provide abortion. The other is David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-abortion group responsible for the misleading and heavily altered videos that purport to show Planned Parenthood doctors discussing the sale of fetal parts for profit — the video to which the shooter seemed to have referenced after being arrested. Although both Newman and Daleiden spoke out against the shootings, to Hogue, their condemnation echoes empty in light of their other statements.
“Sorry, David Daleiden. You don’t get to create fake videos and accuse abortion providers of ‘barbaric atrocities against humanity’ one day and act shocked when someone shoots to kill in those same facilities the next.
“And you, Troy Newman — using Operation Rescue to call for state-sanctioned execution of doctors who serve women — and then crying crocodile tears when someone takes that vision into their own hands.
“It’s America. You are free to have your speech. The language you choose matters. You are not free from the judgement of the consequences of your hate-filled rhetoric.”
On Sunday, Planned Parenthood officials inferred that the often false and misleading rhetoric of GOP leadership in matters dealing with a woman’s right to choose must also be scrutinized as a potential source of increased violence against abortion clinics. Vicki Cowart, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, criticized Republican leadership for their “tirades against Planned Parenthood,” emphasizing the fact that Planned Parenthood provides many necessary, life-saving services.
“We’ve experienced so much hateful language, hateful speech. I think politicians have been in that conversation, and, I mean, you know that the airwaves are full of anti-abortion language, of anti-Planned Parenthood accusations, much of which is false in nature. And we at Planned Parenthood are first and foremost a health care provider. We provide life-saving services to all kinds of folks, men and women, across our communities. And the tirades against Planned Parenthood in the last few months have really been over the top.”
[Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images]
