Cruz defends pro-life movement from charge it encouraged Colorado shooting

On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz defended the pro-life movement against the charge that it inadvertently encouraged last week’s shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood.

“It was a multiple murder of what appears to be a deranged individual,” Cruz said. “And it was horrific, it was evil, and we’ll find out more out about the facts, but I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.” He argued there was “very little evidence” to support the media’s desire “to blame him on the pro-life movement.”

A reporter responded by telling Cruz that shooter Robert Lewis Dear allegedly told police, “no more baby parts,” to which the 2016 hopeful answered, “It’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and a transgendered leftist activist,” a reference to initial reports that Dear was registered to vote as a woman.

“If that’s what he is,” Cruz concluded, “I don’t think it’s fair to blame on the rhetoric on the left.”

Ted Cruz has been one of the GOP primary field’s most passionate voices for defunding Planned Parenthood. He has called the abortion giant a “national criminal enterprise” which should be investigated and prosecuted, and advocates withholding its federal subsidies even if President Barack Obama’s refusal to sign a continuing resolution without Planned Parenthood leads to a government shutdown.