Anti-Choice Rants: A Breeding Ground for Violence

WOMEN AND POLITICS--During the post-Thanksgiving weekend, a handful of GOP presidential candidates issued statements about the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting spree, all of which criticized the actions. However, some used the incident to ensure voters of their stances against choice. 

When Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders released a post-shooting statement that he hoped “people realize that bitter rhetoric can have unintended consequences,” GOP candidate Carly Fiorina fired back a pointed missive. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO responded, “This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing the messenger because they don’t agree with the message. Anyone who tries to link this terrible tragedy to anyone who opposes abortion or opposes the sale of body parts is … this is typical left-wing tactics.” 

The mid-summer release of the “baby parts for sale” video, which has been widely discounted by the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact and other fact checking groups, seems to have rallied the extremists. There have been four incidents of arson at PP clinics in Illinois, Louisiana, Washington State, and one closer to home in Thousand Oaks. 

The video did not go unnoticed by the GOP. Just about every Republican presidential candidate responded by condemning PP and House Republicans grilled PP president Cecile Richards during the September hearings to defund the organization. Though the House had voted in favor of defunding, Senate Democrats voted to block the bill that would have defunded Planned Parenthood as a condition of the budget. 

Still, a promise to overturn Roe v. Wade seems to be a calling card for GOP candidates and the louder the call, the better. 

Fiorina has been a staunch proponent of defunding Planned Parenthood, even daring Hillary Clinton and President Obama to watch footage in the video that PolitiFact has concluded does not exist. Jeb Bush has appointed himself “the most pro-life governor on this stage,” proud to have “created a climate where parental notification took place…and the only state to fund crisis pregnancy centers with state money.” In fact, under Jeb’s watch, Florida became the first of 29 states to issue “Choose Life” personalized plates. In fifteen of those states, proceeds from the sale of plates go to pregnancy crisis and anti-abortion organizations. (*The state of California does not sell Choose Life license plates.) 

Not to be outdone, Governor Christie claims he was the “first governor to ever speak at a pro-life rally on the steps of the statehouse in New Jersey, and vetoed Planned Parenthood funding five times out of the New Jersey budget,” though he was unapologetically pro-choice through most of the 1990s. Donald Trump also seems to have had a change of heart about his pro-choice stance, recounting an anecdote about a friend who didn’t want his pregnant wife to have the baby, who ended up being the “apple of his eye.” 

Governor Kasich is lauded by the president of Ohio Right to Life Mike Gonidakis, who claimed he is “the most successful pro-life governor we’ve ever had in the state of Ohio,” citing the governor’s deployment of the state health department over Ohio’s abortion clinics. In the past five years, Ohio has shuttered more clinics that provided abortions than any state other than Texas. 

Senator Marco Rubio rests on his stance that “life begins at conception” but may be willing to conceded in instances of rape, incest, and life of mother, an occurrence Dr. Ben Carson has deemed as  “exceedingly rare.” Carson told Meet the Press that he “would love to see abortion law overturned” and even compared abortion to slavery. Senator Rand Paul unsuccessfully brought a bill to defund Planned Parenthood to the Senate floor back in August. 

At an Iowa campaign stop on Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz told a reporter that connecting the Colorado Springs shooter to the anti-abortion movement was “vicious rhetoric on the left blaming those who are pro-life.” He went on to suggest that the suspect was a “transgendered leftist activist.” Mike Huckabee echoes the sentiments of Fiorina and Cruz, saying it’s “disingenuous” to suggest those who are anti-choice would “retaliate by sending some mad men into a clinic to kill people.” 

Since the right seems pretty firmly rooted in the anti-choice platform, just how do American voters stand on this issue? According to the Pew Research Center (2015), 55 percent of Americans describe themselves as pro-choice, though there is a regional divide. Three in four New Englanders support abortion rights in all or most cases compared to four in ten in the South Central states, where there are more restrictions. 

There’s also a split along religion with 75% of white Evangelicals describing themselves as “pro-life” compared to 25% of the unaffiliated. 

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Just how important is the issue to the typical voter?  Approximately 62% of those in the 18-29 age bracket who were surveyed didn’t consider abortion rights to be an important political issue, a group that might be most impacted by the availability of abortion, a view shared by about 53% of all adults surveyed. 

Nevertheless, the Republican candidates seem to uses inflammatory rhetoric to rile up the base of supporters who do consider overturning Roe v. Wade to be a priority. Huckabee even referenced “hundreds of babies dying” in his comment about the recent shooting. Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood CEO Vicki Cowart issued a statement, “We’ve seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months. That environment breeds acts of violence. We should not have to live in a world where accessing health care includes safe rooms and bullet proof glass.” 

Planned Parenthood CEO Dawn Laguens echoed Cowart’s claims. “It is offensive and outrageous that some politicians are now claiming this tragedy has nothing to do with the toxic environment they helped create. One of the lessons of this awful tragedy is that words matter and hateful rhetoric fuels violence. It’s not enough to denounce violence without also denouncing the hateful rhetoric that fueled it.” 

Anti-choice activists have a long history of targeting clinics with bombings, anthrax scares, vandalism, and mass blockades, as well as 11 murders and numerous attempted murders of clinic staff and physicians. Prior to Friday’s three deaths and nine injuries, the latest murder was in 2009 when Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his Kansas church.  

The heated debate over abortion rights isn’t likely to diminish during the election cycle as the issue is highly politicized. With any hope, the candidates’ rhetoric will not continue to incite violent acts such as the Colorado Springs shooting and the numerous acts of violence that precede it.

 

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles-based writer and CityWatch contributor.)

-cw

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 97

Pub: Dec 1, 2015