While speaking at the Paris Climate Change Summit earlier this morning, President Obama was asked about the debate back home in the United States over Planned Parenthood and the domestic terror attack last week in Colorado. The President remarked:
“They provide health services to women all across the country. They have for generations, in many cases it’s the only organization that provides health services to impoverished women.”
The President also said that demonizing groups such as Planned Parenthood is a mistake:
“I think it’s fair to have a legitimate, honest debate about abortion. I don’t think that’s something that is beyond the pale of our political discussion. It’s a serious, legitimate issue. How we talk about it, making sure we talk about it factually, accurately and not demonizing organizations like Planned Parenthood is important.”
Robert L. Dear, the Colorado Springs shooter accused of murdering three people last week, told police that he committed the crime so there would be “no more baby parts,” a reference to the now-discredited videos released earlier this year by the Center for Medical Progress, which has ties to the violent wing of the anti-choice movement.
Obama also brought up the lingering issue of the easy availability of guns in the United States:
“We devote enormous resources to rooting out networks, debilitating organizations like ISIL, maintaining the intelligence and improving the information sharing that can identify those that try to kill innocent people. And yet in the U.S., we have the power to do more to prevent what is just a regular process of gun homicides that is unequaled by multiples of five, six, 10.”
The solution, the President noted, lies with Congress and local governments that are:
“Going to have to act in order to make sure we’re preventing people who are deranged from getting weapons that can magnify the damage they can do.”
Featured image by Wikipedia, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
