Sen. James Lankford condemned Friday’s Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting, saying that anybody who claims to be pro-life cannot take it away as a legitimate form of protest.
“What happened this past weekend in Colorado, it’s heart-wrenching,” The Oklahoma Republican said at a press conference Monday. “No one who stands up for life, says that that’s the way you protest, is to go kill people. That makes no rational sense.
“Now we don’t know all the motivations for this individual, but I can assure you, an individual that randomly goes and shoots and kills adults is not also standing up for children at the same time,” he said. “That doesn’t make moral sense and that doesn’t make rational sense.”
Abortion politics may yet trigger a government shutdown if Republicans attach Planned Parenthood defunding provisions to the omnibus spending bill. The bill would help avoid an end-of-year funding crisis and the second government shutdown in three years.
“I don’t think it has been an issue on shutdown already and I don’t think it will be,” Mr. Lankford said. “But I do think this needs to be addressed, because there are many individuals that have a real problem, myself included, with large amounts of federal dollars going to the single largest provider of abortions in the country.”
Republican lawmakers are considering different options to fight Planned Parenthood funding, including reconciliation and appropriations bills, he said. But this will likely not be solved in the coming weeks, Mr. Lankford said.
“I don’t have the perception that suddenly we’re going to solve the issue of life in a few votes,” he said. “Planned Parenthood in many cases ends up being the shiny object that everybody’s focused on currently, but the real issue is what are we doing to protect the life of children.”
Friday’s shooting killed three adults inside the clinic, including a police officer. Robert Lewis Dear, the suspect in the shooting, said the shooting had been about “baby parts” and expressed pro-life and anti-government sentiments, according to Colorado law enforcement.
• Anjali Shastry can be reached at ashastry@washingtontimes.com.
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