Arizona State Sen. Linda Gray Gains Nat'l. Attention For Bringing Roe v. Wade Into Reasons For Attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords; Or, Did She?

This weekend, George Washington University ran a special examining the attempted assassination of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent murder spree.  They invited one Arizona Democrat (Steve Gallardo) and one Arizona Republican (Linda Gray) to speak about the tragic circumstances.

The popular Politico website must have been listening, and they found Gray's comments newsworthy.  Sen. Gray (R-LD10) was asked what lawmakers can do to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future.  This gave her the opportunity to riff on "training of people to respect human life", the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade which legalized abortions in some circumstances, and the "cultural issue in the disrespect for human life."

Politico took the comments from a riff on what can be done to prevent future shootings, and headlined it to be a factor in this month's tragedy: "AZ lawmaker: Roe v. Wade a factor in shootings". 

Here is the full post from Politico, after the jump:



AZ lawmaker: Roe v. Wade a factor in shootings - Ben Smith: January 24, 2011

The aftermath of the Arizona shootings have featured disputes over the role that gun laws or political rhetoric could have played in the violence.

But an Arizona lawmaker offered another source of blame: Roe v. Wade.

Arizona State Senator Linda Gray, speaking to George Washington University Radio's "Political Pulse" yesterday, was asked what "we can do and people can do and law makers can do to prevent something like this from happening, if the answer is not stricter gun control laws."

She replied:

Training of people to respect human life. It is ironic that today today is the day 38 years ago that the Supreme Court said we do not have to respect the life of an unborn and we have gone through now more then a generation of people, a large number of people who believe that it is fine to take an infant prior to it being born and to kill it. What type of respect is that for human life? So now we have this generation of people who have that idea and it continues on, that why respect life if we can kill an infant who can’t defend themselves. It goes back to the value in the creation of life and the respect for that life and if your not trained and have that type of character in realizing that all human life deserves respect this is what our country has come to.

The interviewer, Andrew Feldman, asked, "So you think that it is a cultural issue that is leading our youth into delinquency and into committing acts like this, you think it is a cultural issue here in America?"

Gray: "Yes, I believe part of it is a cultural issue in the disrespect for human life."





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