{"id":33608,"date":"2015-11-30T09:01:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T17:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/planned-parenthood-long-a-lightning-rod-in-us-culture-wars\/"},"modified":"2015-11-30T09:01:42","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T17:01:42","slug":"planned-parenthood-long-a-lightning-rod-in-us-culture-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/planned-parenthood-long-a-lightning-rod-in-us-culture-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Planned Parenthood: Long a lightning rod in US culture wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014<\/strong> As a leading defender of abortion rights and comprehensive sex education, Planned Parenthood deals daily with some of America\u2019s most contentious issues, and is well accustomed to receiving verbal threats.<\/p>\n

Some of the organization\u2019s supporters say Friday\u2019s deadly shooting at its clinic in Colorado Springs shows that the vitriolic rhetoric could be inspiring actual violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is time to stop the demonizing and witch hunts against Planned Parenthood, its staff and patients,\u201d said Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat.<\/p>\n

But critics show no signs of backing away from a multi-pronged offensive against Planned Parenthood, keeping protests and a congressional investigation on their agenda for the coming year.<\/p>\n

The man arrested in the attack that killed a police officer and two civilians uttered the phrase \u201cno more baby parts,\u201d a law enforcement official said.<\/p>\n

Authorities have not elaborated on the gunman\u2019s possible motives, but Planned Parenthood said witnesses described him as an abortion opponent. The \u201cbody parts\u201d phrase echoed rhetoric that surfaced last summer, when anti-abortion activists began releasing undercover videos they said showed Planned Parenthood personnel negotiating the sale of fetal organs.<\/p>\n

The anti-abortion group that made the videos, the Center for Medical Progress, condemned the \u201cbarbaric killing spree in Colorado Springs by a violent madman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood said any payments were legally permitted reimbursements for the costs of donating organs to researchers, and has since stopped accepting even that money. Though the videos have inspired multiple investigations in Congress and in several states, none has confirmed any law breaking by Planned Parenthood.<\/p>\n

Since the videos surfaced, threats have become even more frequent, abortion-rights leaders say.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months,\u201d said Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. \u201cThat environment breeds acts of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Security at Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide has been tightened as a result, said the organization\u2019s spokesman, Eric Ferrero.<\/p>\n

There have been eight murders and more than 220 bombings and arson attacks at abortion facilities in the U.S. since 1977, according to the National Abortion Foundation. Two Planned Parenthood receptionists were killed in 1994 at clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood has remained in the news since the videos were made public, with most Democratic politicians supporting the organization and many Republican leaders assailing it. Republicans have sought to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and several GOP-governed states have tried to block Medicaid funding to the organization.<\/p>\n

All the Republican presidential candidates say they favor restricting abortion rights. Some were asked about the Colorado Springs shootings on Sunday\u2019s talk shows.<\/p>\n

Mike Huckabee condemned the attack as a \u201cdespicable act of murder\u201d and said \u201cwhat he did is domestic terrorism,\u201d but then equated the killings to the abortions Planned Parenthood provides.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no excuse for killing other people, whether it\u2019s happening inside the Planned Parent headquarters, inside their clinics, where many millions of babies die, or whether it\u2019s people attacking Planned Parenthood,\u201d Huckabee said on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

On \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d Carly Fiorina also took the opportunity to criticize.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vast majority of Americans agree, what Planned Parenthood is doing is wrong,\u201d she said. \u201cSo what I would say to 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such comments are \u201cunconscionable,\u201d said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not enough to denounce the tragedy without also denouncing the poisonous rhetoric that fueled it,\u201d Laguens said. \u201cInstead, some politicians are continuing to stoke it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood also gets criticism for its advocacy for teens seeking contraception and candid information about sexuality, but its role as the nation\u2019s leading abortion provider is what makes it such a target.<\/p>\n

Its president, Cecile Richards, endured hours of hostile questioning from GOP members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in September, and the GOP-controlled House then voted to form a new investigative panel to probe its abortion and fetal-tissue policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about getting answers to questions about how we treat and protect life in this country,\u201d Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican chairing the panel, said last month. \u201cThe allegations raised in these disturbing and abhorrent videos have led us to ask: What have we come to in this country?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Planned Parenthood supporters called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to disband the investigative panel in the aftermath of the shooting, but there was no indication that would happen.<\/p>\n

Nor was there any move to call off protests against Planned Parenthood planned for Jan. 21, two days before the annual anti-abortion March for Life. The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said the shootings should not be used to \u201cinflame emotions\u201d and said the protests would proceed as scheduled, to \u201chold Planned Parenthood accountable for their immoral and illegal actions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 As a leading defender of abortion rights and comprehensive sex education, Planned Parenthood deals daily with some of America\u2019s most contentious issues, and is well accustomed to receiving verbal threats. Some of the organization\u2019s supporters say Friday\u2019s deadly shooting at its clinic in Colorado Springs shows that the vitriolic rhetoric could be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":33609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33608"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}