Before Shooting, Cruz Touted Endorsement From Activist Who Called For Execution Of Abortion Doctors
Editor-in-Chief, Think Progress
Ted Cruz was the first Republican candidate to address the Planned Parenthood shooting, tweeting that he was “[p]raying for the loved ones of those killed, those injured and first responders who bravely got the situation under control in Colorado Springs.”
In a campaign event on Sunday, he called the murders “horrific and wrong.”
But just days before the shooting, Cruz touted the endorsement from an activist who has called for the “execution” of abortion providers. In his 2003 book, Troy Newman said the entire country was “blood-guilty” for their failure to kill “abortionists.”
In addition to our personal guilt in abortion, the United States government has abrogated its responsibility to properly deal with the blood-guilty. This responsibility rightly involves executing convicted murderers, including abortionists, for their crimes in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people. Instead, the act of abortion has been elevated to a “God-given right” and the abortionists canonized as saints. Consequently, the entire nation has the blood-red stain of the lives of the innocent upon its head.
Rejecting that innocent blood is to reject the only standard that is effective against innocent bloodshed, excluding the lawful execution of the murderers, which is commanded by God in Scripture.
Newman, currently the president of the far-right anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, argues that his book was just a “theological study” and that his writing does not constitute “advocating violence.”
But in a September 2003 press release, Newman criticized the conviction of Paul Hill for murdering a Florida abortion doctor. Newman argued that “there was no justice because the court prevented him from presenting the legal defense that his conduct was justifiable defensive action.” According to Newman, Hill should have been allowed to argue that “the killing of the abortionist was necessary to save the lives of the pre-born babies that were scheduled to be killed by abortion that day.”
CREDIT: Screenshot
In September, Australian officials revoked a visa for Newman over concerns that his presence and rhetoric could “lead to threats or the commission of acts of violence against women or medical professionals.” Newman traveled to Australia anyway but was denied entry into the country and deported.
As Cruz noted in the press release touting Newman’s endorsement, he was “a driving force in the recent effort to expose Planned Parenthood’s alleged sale of baby parts in a series of undercover videos.” Newman is one of three board members of the Center for Medical Progress, the sting group that produced the videos.
Planned Parenthood does not, as the videos claim, sell “baby parts.” But the message of Newman’s videos apparently made its way to the alleged Planned Parenthood shooter, Robert Lewis Dear. “No more baby parts,” Dear reportedly told authorities after the shooting.
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This has been reposted from Think Progress.
