Who said this? “Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful.” Was it some anti-choice extremist? Not at all. In fact, it was written by feminist Camille Paglia on the liberal website Salon.com.
In light of the horrific shooting in Colorado Springs, where a murderer went on a rampage and killed three people, all of whom were parents, the abortion industry has been wildly spinning the story, putting the blame on those who “spew hatred” and “anti-abortion hateful rhetoric.” Taking a page from the Rahm Emmanuel playbook, abortion supporters aren’t letting a tragedy go to waste and are already fundraising off the shooting and have asked Congress to disband the special committee to investigate possible Planned Parenthood criminal activities.
What happened in Colorado Springs was a terrible tragedy. The families of the victims are suffering tremendously. The children of the victims will sadly grow up without a parent because of the incomprehensible actions of a madman. But the abortion industry’s only focus is on the “hateful rhetoric” that is apparently being spewed from crazy activists.
But even pro-abortion activists think the act of committing an abortion is taking a life and they say it plainly, just like Ms. Paglia did. Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, recently tweeted out a link to a story about a poem directed at pro-life politicians, which ended with the line “You cannot dick-tate who lives in my womb, or who is evicted… I just need you to know that when you try to get all up in here, uninvited? I’ll be shutting that shit down.”
Does that count as hate speech? Abortion is a hot button issue and yes, a stigma is attached because it does end a life. But what Cecile Richards and the abortion industry is calling for is essentially a ban on talking about abortion in a negative light, or even just telling the truth about what abortion is.
Honestly, what would Ms. Richards consider non-hate speech against abortion? Planned Parenthood gets nearly half its income from government revenue, aka taxpayers, and above and beyond that, money from abortion makes up 86 percent of their non-government income. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion business and they obviously make a significant portion of their dollars from it. Anything said against abortion is going to hurt their bottom line and in their mind, can be labeled “hate rhetoric.”
If Ms. Richards truly wants to go after those who spew “hate speech,” she should look at the Grand Jury report from the Kermit Gosnell case. This is part of the opening overview, written by the Philadelphia District Attorney: “What we mean is that [Kermit Gosnell] regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors.”
Planned Parenthood would never cite that report because they knew about the horrendous condition of the Gosnell clinic and did nothing. Nothing. The president of the Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania told the Philadelphia Inquirer that women would come to their clinics all the time and tell them about Gosnell’s horrific conditions at his clinic. Instead of reporting him to authorities, she told the women to call the Department of Health. Way to stand up for women’s health and safety, Planned Parenthood.
What happened in Colorado Springs was indefensible, and pinning it on pro-lifers and groups who are seeking to defund Planned Parenthood is absurd. Besides the fact that compassion and love are at the heart of the pro-life movement, Parenthood rightly has its back up against the wall because of the undercover videos released over the summer showing Planned Parenthood’s own executives casually discussing the harvesting and sale of body parts of aborted babies.
The killer in Colorado Springs was not pro-life. Pro-lifers, no matter how much they disagree with abortion, never advocate violence, regardless of the situation. The successful 40 Days for Life campaign has peacefully protested Planned Parenthood abortion facilities for years and no one ever committed an act of violence against a clinic. Thousands of pro-lifers rose up over the summer to protest Planned Parenthood in the wake of the undercover videos and not one threatened violence.
The abortion industry is fighting with everything they have to make sure their opposition is silenced. This generation of Millennials is more pro-life than the last and even the former president of NARAL, Nancy Keenan, noted the “intensity gap” that exists between young pro-choicers and young pro-lifers – that pro-lifers are more passionate about being pro-life than pro-choicers are about supporting abortion. Pro-lifers want to help women facing crisis pregnancies, aid scared college students who think they have to choose their child or their education, and have peaceful and civil dialogue with those who disagree with them.
The motive of the shooter in Colorado Springs still isn’t clear. By all accounts so far, he seems like a crazy madman who just wanted to take the lives of innocent people and leave destruction and sorrow in his wake. We condemn violence of any kind. It is not the answer to the abortion debate – but neither is to stop speaking the truth about abortion.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America.