After the terrible shooting in Colorado Springs, where a deranged gunman not affiliated with the pro-life movement killed three people and injured nine others in an attack outside a Planned Parenthood abortion center, abortion activists and pro-abortion politicians tried to make it appear as if pro-life people are violent.
With speeches, press releases and tweets and Facebook posts, the pro-abortion movement attempted to paint the majority of Americans who are pro-life as violent extremists whose supposedly “hateful rhetoric” translates into a rash of abortion-related violence across the country.
However, a new report from the trade group for the abortion industry admits that abortion-related violence is on a downwards trend. As the Washington Examiner reports:
Despite the recent spate of attacks on abortion clinics, the most serious types of violence and threats against providers of abortion services have been declining.
Since 2009, significantly fewer burglaries and incidents of vandalism have occurred at abortion clinics compared to the five years prior, according to data compiled by the National Abortion Federation.
A similar trend is seen for bombings, murders and death and bomb threats against abortion providers. After a spike in the late 1990s, the numbers have been declining over the last decade and have appeared to accelerate over the last five years.
Yet the longer-term trend could be good news for the anti-abortion movement, which overall opposes violence and finds itself having to explicitly create distance from the extremist individuals and groups who carry out or promote attacks against providers.
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There was one abortion clinic bombing this century, at a Texas Planned Parenthood center in 2011, but in the last half of the 1990s there was at least one bombing every year. Of eight recorded murders of abortion providers since 1977, the 2009 murder of doctor George Tiller was the only one since 1999.
The most serious kinds of threats against providers also have declined. There have been 13 death threats against abortion providers since 2009, but 51 death threats in the five years prior. And during the spike in abortion-related violence in the last half of the 1990s, there were 103 death threats over a five-year span.
Abortion violence also goes both ways. LifeNews has been the subject of multiple death threats and threatening letters over the years and almost every pro-life organization or pro-life leader we work with regularly has received a death threat or hate mail of some kind from abortion activists. Yet, Planned Parenthood or pro-abortion politicians like Hillary Clinton don’t get tagged by the mainstream media as being responsible for those threats or the killing of pro-life people or arsons of pro-life pregnancy centers due to their “hateful rhetoric.”
Last week, alleged Colorado Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Lewis Dear appeared frazzled in his first court hearing following his arrest. Dear, 57-years-old and residing in Colorado and North Carolina, was arrested at the scene in connection with the violent shooting that claimed the lives of three people, including one police officer and injured 9 others, including multiple officers.
Dear reportedly mentioned “baby body parts” when arrested at the scene of the crime, but he has no connections with the pro-life movement and those who know him best say he was never interested in the issue of abortion.
As Fox News host Megyn Kelly explained, “While police have been careful not to provide information on a possible motive, that has little to stop some from suggesting this has everything to do with political rhetoric from the right.” She indicates that the true motives of most crazed shooters is never known.
Dear appears to have no association with the pro-life movement and those who know him say he is an awkward man who never discussed religion or abortion. The profile they paint is far from a caricature of a pro-life activist who has an issue with the Planned Parenthood abortion business and more of a loner or renegade who may have mental health issue and, at a minimum, is a bit “off.”
Since the shooting, a massive debate has ensued over any bearing it may have on the abortion debate.
Less than 24 hours after the shooting, the CEO of the abortion company, Cecile Richards, issued a fundraising email essentially blaming pro-life people for the shooting, saying the “feed domestic terrorism.”
Planned Parenthood officials have confirmed none of the people killed in the shooting or 9 victims who were injured were Planned Parenthood abortion clinic staff or patients and authorities have released no motive for the shooter as to whether or not he actually targeted Planned Parenthood. And, according to the Associated Press, all of the shooting took place outside of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, not in it.
As LifeNews reported, the police officer killed during Friday’s shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood is pro-life and a co-pastor at his local church. Garrett Swasey, 44, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs police officer who was shot and killed while responding to the shooting and was described by his fellow church members and friends as a courageous man and loving father who drew strength and inspiration from his Christian faith.
Family members and friends identified the other two victims as 29-year-old Ke’Arre Stewart and Jennifer Markovsky, 35. Both accompanied friends to the Planned Parenthood on Friday.
Multiple pro-life groups quickly condemned the shooting while pro-abortion presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sent a tweet exploiting the active shooting before the shooter was apprehended or a motive known to push for support for the abortion business and then went on to say pro-life people should “defend Planned Parenthood, not attack it.” And President Obama exploiting the shooting to demand pro-life people stop “demonizing” Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains issued a statement responding to the shooting, saying it doesn’t know if Planned Parenthood was the target of the attack.
“We don’t yet know the full circumstances and motives behind this criminal action, and we don’t yet know if Planned Parenthood was in fact the target of this attack,” Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains President Vicki Cowart said in a statement.
Cowart was accused of pushing abortion at the memorial for the shooting victims and one woman walked out after she politicized the event.
