Photo courtesy of El Paso Country Sheriff's Department
A Colorado man shot and killed three people (and injured nine) on Friday at a local Planned Parenthood.
Robert Lewis Dear, 57, allegedly opened fire with an assault weapon at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Of the individuals killed, two were civilians and one was a police officer. In a recent development, Dear’s ex-wife, Barbara Micheau, has said that in a separate incident, Dear had put glue on the locks of this particular Planned Parenthood center. Once captured by police, according to CNN, Dear mentioned wanting “no more baby parts” and in later interviews expressed anti-abortion and anti-government views. It seems that Dear had the intention of killing women to protect human embryos.
This is not the first time a Planned Parenthood clinic has been targeted and attacked. Since August — when false anti-abortion videos were released accusing Planned Parenthood of heinous acts — there have been four arson attempts and five cases of vandalism. The true irony lies in the beliefs that these attacks are happening in the name of “saving children.”
How exactly are individuals supposed to justify these acts of horror to their children?
Many are blinded to the fact that the attacks on Planned Parenthood are about more than abortion. When someone targets a Planned Parenthood clinic, they are deterring women from accessing vital resources such as contraceptives, cancer screenings and STI treatment. Women no longer feel secure in a clinic that is meant to be their safe place.
Attacking Planned Parenthood is an act of domestic terrorism against a necessary woman’s health care center. These extremists want nothing more than for Planned Parenthood to shut down.
With the presidential election coming up in 2016, Planned Parenthood is a particularly hot discussion topic. When asked for his opinion at the GOP debate, Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee stated that “[a] baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception.”
The cruel irony in the anti-abortion debate lies in the idea that if the child grows up to be gay, trans, black or a woman, people like Huckabee will turn against the same people he used to fight for. More narrow minded pro-life advocates will vehemently fight for the rights of an unborn child, yet if that child does not fit their social standards, the child is denied basic human rights.
Fox News hosts Charles Payne and Andrea Tantaros have recently had the audacity to use the tragic Planned Parenthood shooting as a soapbox to preach about anti-gun control.
“What if more people had guns there, guys… What if people could have defended themselves?” Payne asked.
Tantaros agreed, replying that it probably would have ended differently.
Considering many of the women are going in for cancer and STI screenings, my only question to Payne and Tantaros is: Where in their hospital gowns are they suppose to put their AK-47s?
The violence against Planned Parenthood clinics is abysmal, not to mention how outlets like Fox News are responding to it. These acts of terror must be treated as such and not just tossed aside. People can no longer make the excuse that these terrorists like Dear are misunderstood or mentally ill “lone wolves.”
How many more Planned Parenthood attacks must happen until we as a nation acknowledge these supposed “loners” are true domestic terrorists?
sdelelli@ramapo.edu
