Planned Parenthood provides birth control and health care to millions of American women. But because it also helps desperate women and girls terminate some pregnancies, the agency suffers vicious assaults by fundamentalists and far-right politicians.
In the September Republican presidential debate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called Planned Parenthood a "criminal enterprise" guilty of "multiple felonies." Cruz said he was "proud to lead the fight" against such an evil operation.
Another GOP candidate, Chris Christie of New Jersey, has accused Planned Parenthood of "the systematic murder of children in the womb to preserve their body parts."
Many other Republican leaders have joined this frenzied slander of the women's health agency. In Congress and state governments, GOP figures constantly try to shut off funds for the group.
So it's hardly surprising that a psychotic Colorado man went to the Planned Parenthood clinic at Colorado Springs with an AK-47 and murdered everyone he could find. The killer probably wasn't stable enough to be a known pro-life activist - but his motivation seems clear. "No more baby parts," he told police.
Now, various Republican candidates who denounced Planned Parenthood furiously are mostly mum about the slaughter. The New Yorker commented: "The loudness of the slurs against the organization is in telling contrast to the cautious silence that descended when it became a target of gun violence."
Pro-life murder has haunted America ever since the historic Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that let women and girls end pregnancies. Earlier this year, a clinic at Pullman, Wash., was set afire. Previously, a zealot named Matthew Derosia told police that Jesus caused him to crash his SUV into a clinic at St. Paul, Minn. And Dr. George Tiller, a clinic physician, was shot to death at his church.
After the Colorado murders, Planned Parenthood official Karl Eastland said the latest killings were "a predictable ripple effect from the false and incendiary attacks that fuel violence from extremists."
Did political ranting incite pro-life murder? That's a somber question.