Bryn Greenwood worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wichita, Kansas, from 1996 to 2000, starting as a secretary before becoming a community sexuality educator. News reports have quoted Dear as mentioning “baby parts” in a statement to police, but police have not released a motive. As blogger Matt Walsh noted, “Interesting fact: Planned Parenthood kills 100 times more people in a day than alleged “anti abortion extremists” have killed in 40 years”.
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When the Center for Medical Progress began releasing the undercover footage, the non-profit and its supporters, in and out of the media, quickly emphasized the physical threat they say the footage posed to their staff, and adopted other talking points aimed at shifting the conversation away from the content of the criticism. That affiliate accepts no reimbursement for its reasonable expenses – even though reimbursement is fully permitted under the 1993 law.
As Americans we must be conscious that fellow citizens will not be quick to look further into organizations such as Planned Parenthood as a whole and all that they offer, especially those who get their news via Facebook pages such as “The Conservative Hammer” and “Pro-Life Rocks!!!” There are so many stories, examples, and warnings from our texts and our liturgy of the harm that language can do that it is impossible to recount them here, but their collective message is clear: if we don’t guard against what we say, calamity will ensue. Additionally, several states where Republicans hold power have sought to block Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.
In the statement, Foley added, “As a state and federally funded university with a health system, we are required to follow applicable state and federal laws”.
When a nutjob forest-dweller shoots up an abortion clinic and allegedly cites anti-abortion rhetoric, the rhetoric and political movement get blamed.
There have been eight murders and more than 220 bombings and arson attacks at abortion facilities in the USA since 1977, according to the National Abortion Foundation. Schiavo was the Florida woman who was allowed to starve to death because she was considered to be in a persistent vegetative state. Yet Republican members of Congress and potential presidential candidates continue to engage in inaccurate and inflammatory attacks on Planned Parenthood. Some were asked about the Colorado Springs shootings on Sunday’s talk shows.
Similarly, people sympathetic to Black Lives Matter who have spent this weekend blaming all pro-lifers, or all Christians, or whatever broader cohort, for inciting violence against Planned Parenthood (also, tragically, a lot of overlap) should consider how substantively similar their arguments and attempts to blame an entire political movement for the actions of one murderer are to the arguments anti-Black Lives Matter people use to blame that entire movement for the actions of one murderer.
Two days before the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado, NARAL Pro-Choice America delivered a petition formally asking the Obama administration to label attacks against abortion providers as “domestic terrorism”.
WaPo gave credit to this line of thinking in the piece, implying that it’s out of bounds to criticize Planned Parenthood because it might contribute to armed attacks.
The writer went on to say that she and her colleagues received hundreds of phone calls from people who threatened to “torch” the clinic and “kill the “murdering whores” who worked there”. “What I might allege to anyone who tries to link this frightful tragedy to anyone who opposes abortion or opposes the sale of body elements, this is typical left-wing techniques”.
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Such comments are “unconscionable”, said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood. “Instead, some politicians are continuing to stoke it”. Often, doctors and health care providers are also targeted repeatedly. “We’ve seen in that across the country from all sorts of speakers in the last few months”, Cowart stated.
