Since the shootings near a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, those who oppose abortion are being told to tone down their so-called “hateful rhetoric.” Not that the shooting is the fault of pro-lifers, say the more polite among the pro-abortion Left. They say it’s the atmosphere created by accurate descriptions of abortion and its accompanying practices that probably contributed to it.

Vickie Cowart, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains stated, “We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country.”

Vickie Saporta, President and CEO of the National Abortion federation stated, “Although anti-abortion groups may condemn this type of violence when it happens, the way that they target and demonize providers contributes to a culture where some feel it is justifiable to murder doctors.”

No doctor — or patient — was murdered here. The perpetrator entered the Planned Parenthood clinic after having injured nine people and killed three. He is, at best, unbalanced, and likely crazy. (Really – check out his picture.)

Did he have a motive? We don’t know. We don’t know if the shootings, which took place outside the clinic, had anything to do with opposition to Planned Parenthood — or abortion.    There’s a report circulating that the killer said the words “No more baby parts,” perhaps referring to the 11 videos successively released throughout the summer and fall proving that some Planned Parenthood clinics harvest the parts of the babies they kill, and are compensated well for them.

Here’s what we do know about the shooter:

1. The Washington Post reports he had a history of abusive and violent behavior, especially toward women,  including two of his three ex-wives. He’s even accused of rape at knifepoint.
2. People who crossed his path recently described him as angry, exhibiting “strange and unsettling behavior.”
3. No one reported hearing him speak of abortion.
4. He was supposedly religious, but an ex-wife said he used his religion at times to justify abusive behavior.

Yet we hear that those who protest that abortion is not compassionate, but butchery, are somehow at fault.

In response to this, Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life points out that “eight clergymen wrote to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. complaining about his protest activity and the tension it was creating.” In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King asked “Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?”

In an opinion piece for Fox News, Father Pavone wrote of the “moral and legal environment” created, not by pro-lifers but by legal abortion.  He wrote: “all life is interconnected, and all respect for life is interconnected. Allowing child-killing as a solution to a problem only makes it easier to think that ending the life of an adult can solve a problem.”

The pro-life movement cannot and will not apologize for speaking the truth.