Huckabee: ‘Disingenuous’ to blame clinic shootings on anti-abortion activists

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says it is “disingenuous” for Planned Parenthood to blame Friday’s attack on a clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo. on anti-abortion activists.

“I don’t know of any pro-life leader… who has suggested violence toward Planned Parenthood personnel or some act of violence toward their clinics,” Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.

Huckabee says he has heard only “universal condemnation” for the Planned Parenthood attacks from abortion opponents, including from the group that released the controversial videos of abortion providers discussing the sale of fetal tissue for research.

Given the widespread condemnation of Friday’s deaths, Huckabee says it is “a little bit disingenuous on the part of Planned Parenthood to blame people who have a strong philosophical disagreement with the dismembering of human babies and with the selling of body parts.”

No excuses should be made for the “abominable” killings, however, he added.

“Regardless of why he did it, what he did is domestic terrorism,” Huckabee said.

The Planned Parenthood clinic shootings, allegedly committed by Robert Lewis Dear, left three people dead including a police officer. Nine more people were wounded and the latest reports are that the shooter expressed anti-abortion and anti-government views.

“There is no legitimizing. There is no rationalizing,” Huckabee added.

“It was mass murder. It was absolutely unfathomable.”