The slaughter in Las Vegas has been labeled the “worst” mass murder in our nation’s last century. Is it worthy of such a classification? Reporters and commentators obviously insist that it is. Ordinary citizens, justifiably shocked by the deliberate killing of more than 59 and the wounding of hundreds more, have been persuaded to classify the grisly event by using the handiest superlative available. From coast to coast, in print and over the airwaves, nothing has ever been deemed more deserving of the term “worst.”
But wait! The most recent annual report produced by the London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) admits that the IPPF was responsible for 1,094,679 abortions in 2016 alone. In the United States, Planned Parenthood snuffed out the life of 887 yet-to-be-born infants every day. Is this not worse than Stephen Paddock’s deadly rampage?
Planned Parenthood’s fans and pro-abortion partisans everywhere always claim that abortion isn’t murder. Life begins at birth, they insist, and extracting what can be found in a womb prior to birth is considered a relatively simple medical procedure. But these individuals, properly designated “pro-aborts,” produce no credible evidence to back up such claims. And science continues to demonstrate the terrifying absurdity of their falsehoods.
We are all supposed to be outraged at what occurred in Las Vegas — and in Orlando, San Bernardino, and Fort Hood where fewer were murdered. Okay, these murderous sprees are completely condemnable. But we’re also expected to demand that lawmakers outlaw private possession of weapons — not just semi-automatic military-style rifles but any weapon capable of firing a bullet into a fellow human’s body. Overlooked is the fact that no weapon ever shot a bullet by itself. Shootings are the work of shooters, not weapons.
We are also expected to accept the lies issued by PP leaders who insist that they are in business to provide “health care for women.” Aren’t half of abortion’s victims females? What kind of health care is it that deliberately terminates the lives of human beings? Overlooked in this discussion is the other PP practice whereby organs harvested from aborted fetuses are sold for profit. That these organs are taken from a live — yet to be born — baby and are salable only because they were extracted from living individuals lends credence to the argument that abortion is the taking of a life.
There’s even more to consider when assessing PP and its primary function. The organization receives approximately $500 million per year in federal funding. PP President Cecile Richards alone takes home close to $600,000 per year. This means that all U.S. taxpayers are forced to support an organization and its leader who terminate the lives of close to 900 innocent and yet-to-be-born infants every day. The killer in Las Vegas received no such handouts. And, as evil as his deed surely was, the average daily abortion toll racked up by PP exceeds the number of deaths caused by Paddock. Consider for a moment the momentous outrage if Paddock had been discovered to be a beneficiary of federal funding. The financing of his murderous spree was done with his own money. In contrast, government forces all taxpayers to finance PP and its leader.
During a 2016 hearing about taxpayer dollars being supplied to Planned Parenthood, Representative Diane Black (R-Tenn.) stated her outrage:
As a nurse for more than 40 years, I know that abortion is not healthcare and I am incensed that, year after year, my constituents see their money sent to Washington and distributed to organizations that promote or perform abortions all under the guise of “healthcare” services.
Ms. Black is as qualified as anyone to know that abortion takes the lives of innocent babes. Yet, federal funding for Planned Parenthood continued.
What happened in Las Vegas was absolutely horrible. But, as bad as it unquestionably was, designating it as the past century’s worst killing overlooks a far more deadly termination of innocent life — not in a single day, but daily.
John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society. This column appeared originally at the insideJBS blog and is reprinted here with permission.
