Speaking on a Sunday TV talk show, “Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson denounced ‘hateful rhetoric’ across the political spectrum in the wake of a shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood facility that left three people dead. … He added that there’s ‘No question the hateful rhetoric exacerbates the situation’ and urged ‘intelligent, civil discussion’ about differences. Asked whether opponents of abortion should tone down their rhetoric, he said both sides should do so.” (Read the story here.)
This screed is designed to sound good, but it’s nonsense. This is the classic False Equivalency Defense (“both sides do it”) that Republicans love to deploy after their fellow conservatives have behaved badly. No, both sides don’t it. What happened in Colorado Springs is unique to the pro-life crowd. Supporters of legal abortion don’t bomb buildings or shoot people. In the last six years, more than 7,000 acts of violence and vandalism have been committed against Planned Parenthood facilities, according to the group. How many similar acts have been committed against pro-lifers? I can’t think of a single one. All of the violence is coming from pro-lifers. So is most of the “hateful rhetoric” polluting the abortion debate.
For 45 years now, the right-to-life movement has sought to overturn a constitutional right belonging to others through intimidation, force, and violence. Black people, who had far larger grievances, never did these things in their quest for civil rights. During the same time frame, anti-war protesters were far more often on the receiving end of violence than dishing it out. Politically-motivated violence tends to be one-sided, and it is in this case, too.
Let’s call things by their right name. The campaign against Roe v. Wade isn’t civil disobedience, it’s unlawful violent insurrection. I say that as someone who personally believes abortion is a moral wrong. In my view, the right-to-lifer movement has destroyed the legitimacy of the argument against abortion by resorting to criminal violence to push their cause. That’s not doing unborn children any favors. (The old adage, “With friends like that who needs enemies?” comes to mind.)
Another Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, speaking on a different Sunday TV talk show, got it right when he called the Colorado Springs attack “terrorism” and “abominable,” although he, too, tried to milk the incident for political gain by taking a jab at Secretary of State John Kerry in the same breath.
Carson, who has been dishonest about his personal biography and a good many other things, is not being honest about assigning blame for last week’s murderous assault against an abortion clinic by a deranged hermit who plasters crucifixes on his shanty and trailer homes, keeps vicious dogs, peeps on female neighbors, and hands out anti-Obama tracts. He may, or may not, have been influenced by anti-abortion rhetoric; that remains to be seen. But to the extent “hateful rhetoric” contributed to his murder spree, the blame for it falls squarely on one side of the abortion debate, because the other side doesn’t do that.
Yesterday, a GOP congressman demanded an apology from Planned Parenthood for calling out the right’s hateful abortion rhetoric. Obviously, it is he who should apologize. Today, Carson took that line of argument a step further by insinuating that pro-choice rhetoric is equally bad and pro-choicers are equally at fault. No, it isn’t, and they aren’t. That’s an odious lie.
Carson’s clumsy attempt to equate abortion rights supporters with pro-life murderers is both disingenuous and dishonest. The unspoken message of Carson’s tortured logic is that the actions of the former excuse the behavior of the latter. No, it doesn’t work that way under any reasonable moral or ethical standard. Carson is dead wrong about this.