Just a day after Thanksgiving, Americans witnessed yet another mass shooting on our country’s soil, this time at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Three people were killed, another nine were injured and the gunman was later revealed to be 57-year-old Robert Lewis Dear Jr. President Obama issued a statement condemning the attack and insisting, “This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal.” When I heard about this horrific event, though, it indeed felt very normal. In 2015 alone, there have already been 351 mass shootings and so the fact that this sort of event happened is depressingly not that surprising.
What particularly struck me about this act of violence was the perpetrator’s target. While we do not know the full details of why this tragedy happened, the fact that it occurred at Planned Parenthood is no coincidence. The organization has long since been a verbal target of political and religious leaders alike and recently witnessed a string of terroristic attacks. Particularly in these last six months, politicians—especially presidential candidates—have explicitly and brazenly used Planned Parenthood as a political punching bag to rile up voters and appeal to the party’s base. This is not just meaningless rhetoric meant to grab votes—the hostile language surrounding women’s reproductive health and the legal right to abortion has a very real and damaging impact.
This past summer, the dubiously named Center for Medical Progress released secretly recorded videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the procurement of fetal tissue for medical research. Though the practice is completely legal, C.M.P claimed these videos proved the women’s health organization was illegally harvesting fetal organs—and Republicans pounced. Conservative lawmakers and every Republican presidential candidate called for the government to strip Planned Parenthood of its $500 million in federal funding, despite the fact that federal dollars do not go towards abortions anyways.
Even after Planned Parenthood was presented testimony that the videos were edited, and announced it would halt the donation of fetal tissue entirely, the controversy raged on and has been touched upon by candidates time and time again.
“[Hillary Clinton] believes in the systematic murder of children in the womb to preserve their body parts.”
“We shouldn’t be [funding] an ongoing criminal enterprise.”
“No more baby parts.”
The first two quotes, by Presidential candidates Chris Christie and Ted Cruz, were spoken at the Republican debates in September and met with resounding applause. The third quote the Colorado shooter allegedly uttered as he was taken into police custody. Words matter, and poisonous ideas can quickly turn into lethal action. So when politicians carelessly paint Planned Parenthood—an organization that provides life-saving preventative care and health services to millions of women—as some sort of monstrosity for their own political gain, the hatred they spew matters.
Dear’s actions are his alone, but it is foolish and irresponsible to think that the beliefs that drove him to murder exist in a vacuum. A toxic political climate and the demonization of opposing sides enable radicals like Dear to feel justified in their extremism.
As I write this, several GOP candidates have publicly condemned the shootings, but none have outright acknowledged the role of anti-choice rhetoric and smear campaigns in motivating radicals like Dear. In fact, candidates seemed keener on lambasting Democrats for demonizing Republicans and supposedly politicizing the shooting. But one cannot politicize an inherently political event.
Duke’s own Professor Allen Frances published a particularly thoughtful piece this past week about the hypocrisy of “right-to-life” advocates who claim to believe in the sanctity of human life “from conception to delivery, while simultaneously showing callous indifference to life once it has taken its first extra-uterine breath.”
If someone claims to be “pro life,” then that should encompass life at all stages. That includes the lives of those who died in the Colorado shooting, which many pro-birthers were quick to mock on social media. It includes the lives of the 2.8 million women and men who rely on Planned Parenthood for affordable healthcare. And it includes the lives of those who continue to risk their safety to provide these services amidst the threats of domestic terrorism that this past week proved all too real.
Michelle Menchaca is a Trinity senior. Her column runs on alternate Tuesdays.
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