Media’s abortion “extremist” double standard is showing

When a lone gunman was arrested after killing three people and wounding several others at or near a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood last week, the media (and of course, Planned Parenthood) immediately labeled all pro-lifers “extremists,” claiming their “rhetoric” somehow led to the shooting. This irresponsible and untrue claim is obviously motivated not by truth, but by the pro-abortion bias of many in the mainstream media.

But when others commit crimes – specifically those within the abortion movement – the media, if it mentions the crimes at all, does the opposite of using them to label the entire movement.

Earlier this year, when Melanie Maria Toney was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail device at pro-life people praying outside an Austin Planned Parenthood, the media did not respond by labeling all pro-choice activists as “extremists” or “domestic terrorists.”

Toney was not a peeping tom recluse living in a trailer in the boonies. In fact, she was an active supporter of abortion, even testifying against restrictive abortion laws in Texas. Her actions were blamed on her alone and were not used as a politically charged media slander of all abortion supporters.

There have been several acts of violence directed at pro-lifers – some involving guns – yet the media conveniently fails to report them.

Let’s look at how the media handled just some of the violent or illegal actions of those in the abortion movement, starting with an abortionist who was convicted of sexually abusing several patients in his Phoenix abortion clinic. In February 2015, an Arizona court rejected an appeal by abortionist Brian Finkel (pictured right), who was originally charged with 67 counts of sexual assault. Finkel was sentenced in 2004 to nearly 35 years in prison and was convicted of 22 of those counts of sexual assault on his abortion patients. Despite the fact that Finkel once did 20 percent of Arizona’s abortions, the media didn’t label all abortion providers as rapists after his conviction. (More on this case here.)

In December 2013, a California Planned Parenthood employee was arrested on a count of sexual battery, according to the Sacramento Police. Jorge Martin-Santana (pictured right) stood accused of allegedly inappropriately touching a patient while working as a medical assistant and the media was relatively silent. Despite his arrest on these alleged charges, Planned Parenthood suffered no scorn from the mainstream media.

When Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing three viable babies born alive during abortion procedures, and was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a woman who died at his clinic during a procedure, the abortion industry referred to him as an ‘outlier’ and anomaly – and the media played along. In May of 2013, Gosnell was sentenced to life in prison, leaving the abortion industry and its supporters who turned a blind eye to Gosnell’s actions unscathed.

When police arrested Tony Ray Thornton (pictured right), he was working as the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood in Lubbock, Texas. In 2012, the 56-year-old was arrested and accused of exposing his genitals in Mackenzie Park. Sgt. Jonathan Stewart, Lubbock Police Department spokesman, said he didn’t know whether children were in the area when Thornton was in the park or how many people were present. (Read the police report here.) But no worries, because Planned Parenthood instantly distanced themselves from him and that was that. There was no call from the media to label all Planned Parenthood staffers perverts for the actions of one employee.

In 2010, a Cape Cod abortionist admitted that his actions led to the death of Laura Hope Smith, who came to him for an abortion at 13 weeks pregnant. She was pronounced dead later that day. Prosecutors charged 67-year-old Rapin Osathanondh (pictured right) with manslaughter, alleging that he failed to monitor her while she was under anesthesia, delayed calling emergency services when her heart stopped, and later lied to try to cover up his actions. In addition to receiving a six month jail sentence for pleading guilty to the criminal charge of involuntary manslaughter, Osathanondh settled a civil suit and agreed to pay $2 million to Smith’s parents. To date, no other abortionist has been labeled an “extremist” for Osathanondh’s actions. (Read more here.)

In a 5-4 ruling in 2010, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the 2008 20-year manslaughter sentence of Laurel abortionist Malachy Dehire (pictured right) for the 1997 shooting death of his ex-wife Nayasha.

According to the case, shortly after midnight on January 23, 1997, 911 operators dispatched Jones County deputies and paramedics to the home of Dr. Nayasha Dehenre, where her ex-husband was standing outside when law enforcement officials and medical personnel arrived. He directed them into the home, where they found Nayasha on the couch with a book lying across her stomach, her feet propped up, with a bullet wound to her head. She died several days later. Despite Dehenre’s cold and calculating actions, there was no call to label all abortionists as extremist wife killers after his arrest and subsequent sentencing and appeal. Instead, Jones County Assistant District Attorney, J. Ronald Parrish called the abortionist – not the abortion movement – a “despicable nasty person,” even adding that Dehenre also killed abortion patients. “He not only killed his wife, that’s what he was convicted for, but I think people need to know about him. He also killed two other women during abortions. One in Alabama and one in Jackson, Mississippi, and according to him he performed 30,000 abortions on unborn children,” the D.A. said.

But wait, there’s more…

In 2008, former employee and abortionist for Planned Parenthood of Columbia-Willamette in Oregon, Dr. George Elliott Kabacy, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for possession of child pornography. Kabacy was actively practicing as an OBGYN in Washington State at the time of his arrest in December 2006. At the sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Vince Lombardi said Kabacy “traded pictures of children being subjected to rape and degradation.” Kabacy admitted in his plea agreement that he knowingly possessed more than 8,000 images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Although this pedophile was not practicing at the Planned Parenthood at the time of his arrest, the media chose not to associate him with Planned Parenthood at all after his despicable illegal activities became public.

On December 11, 2001, the Oklahoman detailed the murder trial of abortionist John Baxter Hamilton (pictured right), who performed abortions at the Oklahoma Clinic for Women in Oklahoma City. Hamilton was found guilty of the Valentine’s Day killing of his wife, Susan Hamilton. Her nude body was found lying in blood in the master bathroom of the Hamilton’s Quail Creek home, her skull fractured and face disfigured. She had been choked with a necktie and beaten to death.

Although the media will tout the murders of abortionists, few seem to mention the murders committed by abortionists, including this one. They choose to see this case as unrelated to the abortion movement and refuse to label abortionists as extremists or terrorists because of it. (More info on this brutal murder here.)

I just drove and stopped, and I shot. He was still moving so I shot him one more time. I aimed under the ribcage going up toward the heart.

Those are the words of convicted murderer Harlan Drake. Who was his victim? Not a Planned Parenthood worker or abortionist. No, Drake believed in abortion. His victim was pro-life activist James Pouillon, who was holding a pro-life sign outside a school in Michigan when the pro-choice shooter aimed and fired his weapon, killing him instantly on September 11, 2009.

A witness testified in court that she saw Drake fire multiple shots at Pouillon who attempted to protect himself with his sign and used it to support himself before the shooter drove closer and fired again, she said. “The shots rang out again and he fell to the side and onto his front,” she said.

There were “bullet holes everywhere” in Pouillon’s body, she testified. “He was shot all the way around his body.”

Authorities said that the “anti-abortion literature” distributed by Pouillon motivated Drake to shoot him.  Drake told police that the night before the shootings, he intended to kill Pouillon if he saw him at the school the next day holding his pro-life sign.

“I just drove and stopped, and I shot,” Drake said during an interview recorded by police the day of the shootings. “He was still moving so I shot him one more time. I aimed under the ribcage going up toward the heart. I figured if he was there, I’d make sure he wasn’t there (again)…”

The same day Drake fatally wounded James Pouillon in cold blood, he also murdered another man. At the time of Pouillon’s death, pro-life leaders called for authorities to treat Pouillon’s case the same way they treat acts of violence at abortion clinics.

Planned Parenthood East Central Michigan president Lori Lamerand’s response to Pouillon’s murder was published by a local media outlet. “If this is related to his pro-life views, we find that tragic and do not endorse such actions in any way, shape or form,” she said. Her attempt to denounce the killing was fully accepted by the media and there was no frenzy to claim that Planned Parenthood’s “rhetoric” against “anti-abortion activists” played a role in Pouillon’s tragic death.

Despite the murder of this pro-life activist, to date, no other abortion activists have been labeled “extremists.”

The pro-abortion bias of the mainstream media is showing.