Pro-Life leaders are furious with presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson for his comments yesterday that pro-life rhetoric is partially responsible for the shootings that took place in Colorado last week.
On CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning, Carson said, “Hateful rhetoric exacerbates the situation…You don’t ever solve them [problems] with hateful rhetoric. Both sides should tone down the rhetoric and engage in civil discussion.”
On ABC’s This Week Carson said, “There’s a lot of extremism coming from all areas. We get into our separate corners and we hate each other, we want to destroy those with whom we disagree.”
In exclusive interviews with Breitbart News, a number of national pro-life leaders condemned Carson’s statements.
Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue and a board member at the Center for Medical Progress, said, “Doctor Carson just ended his presidential candidacy.”
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of American, that has 700 chapters on college campuses around the country, says:
Did Carson take his talking points from Planned Parenthood? He completely missed the mark, casting suspicion on pro-lifers who had nothing to do with this tragedy and only furthering the deceitful narrative that the abortion industry has already laid out in the media. Compassion and love, not violence, are at the heart of the pro-life movement and motivate us to protect life in its stages and we extend that same love and compassion to the victims and their families of this horrible tragedy.
The Grande Dame of the pro-life movement, Judie Brown of American Life Leagues, said, “Outrageous. What is Carson missing in all this other than a known dysfunctional man with a history of undependable behavior. What did any of us say to provoke that? Carson is dead wrong, period.”
Bryan Kemper of Stand True Ministries and founder of Rock for Life, says:
We can never tone down calling the killing of innocent children what it is. Abortion is nothing short of an act of homicide and until we can bring it to an end pro-lifers must not tone done anything but actually stand stronger than ever before.
We must stand against any act of violence including gun violence, terrorism violence, domestic violence or abortion violence. Killing any innocent person is an act of violence including those in the womb and for that reason we must speak louder and louder until that violence is ended.
The fact that one person may have committed a horrific act of violence at an abortion mill does not change the fact that the abortion mill commits equally horrific acts of violence everyday and we will speak out against those acts also.
Ryan Bomberger, founder of the Radiance Foundation, says:
Pro-abortion activists consider any scientifically, historically, or statistically accurate information about the violence of abortion to be ‘hateful rhetoric’. Facts are not hate speech, Dr. Carson. Exposing the inner-workings of Planned Parenthood in an undercover investigation isn’t ‘hateful rhetoric’; it enables illuminating and civil discussion about inhumane barbarity.
I can’t imagine how Dr. Carson would characterize the efforts of Frederick Douglass or Harriet Beecher Stowe in their relentless, yet peaceful, attacks on the dehumanizing institution of slavery. Division is healthy, especially when it delineates right from wrong. The Prolife movement strives passionately, and peacefully, to educate the American public about abortion because mainstream media, including Face the Nation and certain presidential candidates, won’t.
Father Stephen Imbarrato adds:
A few months ago the Republican candidates were falling all over themselves trying to show who was most Prolife. Big change now. Mostly silence. This is Jesus using sin to show us who is the true wheat and who are the chaff. The candidates that remain strong in the face of this adversity are the ones we need to get behind.
This is not the first time that Carson has said something that has angered the pro-life community. Just last month he said the fight to save the live of Terry Schiavo was “much ado about nothing.” Schiavo was the Florida woman who was allowed to starve to death because she was considered to be in a persistent vegetative state. Her case was a rallying point for the national pro-life movement.
Given that Carson is relying on evangelical support, his recent comments can only work against him in the crucial upcoming vote in the Iowa caucuses.
Follow Austin Ruse @austinruse
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.