Where many millions of babies die

Planned Parenthood thinks the shootup at its Colorado clinic was motivated by something as opposed to being random. Planned Parenthood thinks the shooter didn’t select its clinic just as he might have selected a Burger King or Applebee’s, but rather, on purpose, because of what it is – a place where women can end pregnancies they don’t want to or aren’t able to continue.

Planned Parenthood said on Sunday that news reports that the gunman who attacked its Colorado health clinic had uttered “no more baby parts” during his arrest showed that the suspect was motivated by an anti-abortion agenda.

The remark attributed to the 57-year-old suspect, identified by police as Robert Lewis Dear, was an apparent reference to Planned Parenthood’s abortion activities and its role in delivering fetal tissue to medical researchers, a hot button issue in the 2016 race for the presidency.

“We now know the man responsible for the tragic shooting at PP’s health center in Colorado was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion,” the organization said on Twitter.

It would have been a safe guess anyway.

Of course, the police and the media can’t decide things on that basis; it’s their job to be more careful than that.

But we can; the general public can; bloggers can.

Conservatives have accused Planned Parenthood, a non-profit that provides a range of health services, including abortion, of illegally selling baby parts, an accusation it has strenuously denied.

While calling the shooting “an incredible tragedy,” Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Sunday dismissed talk that harsh anti-abortion rhetoric may have contributed to the attack.

“What he did is domestic terrorism,” the former Arkansas governor told CNN, referring to the gunman.

“There’s no excuse for killing other people, whether it’s inside … Planned Parenthood clinics, where many millions of babies die, or whether it’s people attacking Planned Parenthood,” Huckabee said.

No. A pregnancy is not a baby, and ending a pregnancy is not killing a baby. Huckabee is justifying the shootup. If people really were killing babies inside that clinic, violence might be justified in an effort to stop the killing.

The Colorado Springs attack led Governor John Hickenlooper to call for both sides of the debate over Planned Parenthood’s activities to “tone down the rhetoric.”

Both sides? When’s the last time supporters of abortion rights killed an opponent? Besides never?

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