For Immediate Release

April 28, 2016

Is Robert Dear a Lone Wolf? FMF Demands House Select Panel Investigate Anti-Abortion Violence

APRIL 28, 2016—On the first day of indicted Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear’s mental competency hearing, the Feminist Majority Foundation calls on the House Select Investigative Panel to fully investigate anti-abortion violence. Dear is accused of killing three people and injuring nine others when he opened fire at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood in November 2015.

“Whether or not Robert Dear is viewed as mentally competent, the larger question is whether he was a lone wolf or whether he worked with, or was influenced by, other anti-abortion extremists when he went on this murderous rampage,” said Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal.

“We now know from the recently released court documents that Robert Dear is an anti-abortion extremist who says he committed this act to ‘stop the selling of baby parts,’ which is the theme of the discredited videos produced by the fraudulent Center for Medical Progress,” continued Smeal.

“Meanwhile, the House Select Investigative Panel is investigating abortion providers as to whether or not they are ‘selling’ what Chair Marsha Blackburn continues to call ‘baby body parts.’ By promoting the agenda of the discredited Center for Medical Progress’ smear campaign against abortion providers, the Select Panel is fostering a hostile and dangerous environment that further emboldens those who target, harass, and terrorize abortion providers,” said Smeal.

Robert Dear’s hearing comes the day before convicted murderer Scott Roeder’s hearing in preparation for resentencing. Roeder was convicted in 2010 for the murder of Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Roeder was also painted as a lone wolf. But according to his trial testimony, he was an active and regular participant in Operation Rescue events. Roeder also later told a reporter that he knew and had met with Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, a claim that Newman has denied.

“The House Panel has issued dangerous subpoenas to abortion providers and medical researchers, even as violence and threats against abortion providers and researchers have escalated. But so far, the Panel’s majority has refused to subpoena CMP head David Daleiden or other CMP officers, including founding officer and Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, to testify under oath about their CMP activities and the now discredited videos.”

For more facts on CMP and the House Select Investigative Panel, click here.

 

CONTACT: Beth Rader

703-522-2214

media@feminist.org

 

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