On Black Friday, November 27, Robert Lewis Dear allegedly shot over a dozen people at a Colorado Springs, Colorado, Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Three of his victims have died.
In one report, Dear’s neighbor James Russell described Dear as a man who talked in a rambling way on “a number of topics that didn’t make sense together and . . . tended to avoid eye contact.” According to another report, Dear has a history of violence, including against his wife from whom he has been divorced for the last 15 years.
A thumbnail sketch of the man and his problems is still evolving, but nothing that we have seen ties him in any way to pro-life activities. However there seems to be a pattern forming, and we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge it. “Shooters,” as they are called, have been acting violently against their fellow Americans on far too many occasions. The media covers such acts, focusing on the madness of the perpetrators and reporting in a way that makes it seem as though the only solution to such egregious violence is to control weapons in some way, as even Obama has suggested.
But it would be wise for us to look beneath the surface of escalating violence in this nation and examine what we have been ignoring. The elephant in the room—the one violent act that employs deadly weapons to achieve a horrible result and is perhaps most heinous of all—is the one the media ignores. That act is surgical abortion.
Many times in the past I have said that terrorism prior to birth as well as after is always and in every case a crime against the dignity of the human person. One act is no more heinous than any other when innocents die or are assaulted in any way.
Just two years ago we pointed out that the act of abortion is “clearly the employment of force designed to render the victim dead. To my mind, such acts are forms of domestic terrorism, pure and simple.” To be perfectly honest, if America can turn a blind eye to this barbarism against the most innocent persons in our midst and hide behind the arrogance of a set of Supreme Court decisions that endowed mothers with the final decision regarding which babies will live and which ones will die, why are we so shocked by the escalating violence in our nation?
Yes, we know that Mr. Dear is apparently mentally challenged. And yes we agree that, regardless of where the violence is committed, it is always and in every case wrong. But we will not be hypocrites about this for a single second. We abhor and condemn all acts of terrorism, all acts of savagery against the innocent—born and preborn—and we call upon our fellow Americans to do likewise. We join with Americans across this land in prayer for the victims in Colorado Springs, and we pray for this nation.
Stop drawing lines in the sand so that Americans can choose whom to excuse from life and whom to allow to live simply because of immoral judicial activism.
Be honest. Murder and mayhem against the innocent is always and in every case wrong. Period!
Wake up America! For God’s sake, wake up!
