The misleadingly named "Center for Medical Progress", the group that produced the fraudulent Planned Parenthood tapes currently being cited by Republicans in their attacks on the group, includes Operation Rescue head Troy Newman as one of its only three listed board members. That the organization would share such remarkably close ties to the far-far-right Operation Rescue is hardly a coincidence, as Newman encourages activists to engage in so-called "sting" operations against healthcare providers. Newman, however, is more well-known for his public declarations that the murder of American abortion providers should legally be considered "justifiable defensive action" to "save the lives of the pre-born babies". Newman is also the author of a tract titled Their Blood Cries Out, a manifesto in which he explicitly called for the execution of abortion providers.

The anti-Planned-Parenthood video’s creator also received the endorsement and assistance of Operation Rescue "senior policy advisor" Cheryl Sullenger, who served prison time for her involvement in a domestic terrorist plot to bomb an abortion clinic in the 1980's. In Sullenger's words the creator of the tapes "shared our vision for obtaining criminal prosecutions" of Planned Parenthood, which resulted in Operation Rescue's interest and assistance.

If the name Cheryl Sullenger is familiar in the context of other incidents of recent domestic terrorism, it should be: Sullenger was the Operation Rescue “advisor” who provided scheduled court appearance dates for Kansas doctor George Tiller to fellow anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder, assisting Roeder's own attempts to track Tiller before he eventually executed Tiller in front of Tiller’s church in 2009. She initially denied these contacts with Roeder, only acknowledging her assistance to Roeder after it was revealed that the gunman had Sullenger's name and phone number on his car's dashboard at the time of the murder. (Roeder also owned a signed copy of Newman’s book Their Blood Cries Out, which singled out Dr. Tiller by name as comparable to Adolph Hitler.)

There is no room for argument on this one. The creators and distributors of the specific tapes that Mike Huckabee, Carly Florina, Ted Cruz and other Republicans are even now using in anti-Planned Parenthood attacks on the campaign trail and in their fundraising efforts have strong and undeniable ties to both past incidences of domestic terrorism and, despite what Mike Huckabee is currently insisting, include specific individuals who have endorsed or participated in the use of domestic terrorism against healthcare clinics and doctors in service to the "pro-life" movement. Even more indisputable: The use of domestic terrorism in service to the cause is hardly the unheard-of anomaly that Huckabee suggests it is, but part of a decades-long string of arsons, bombings, and targeted assassinations by “pro-life” individuals and groups—threats that have “risen dramatically” in recent months as a result of false claims promoted by, among others, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

There is a reason that the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic that was the target of Friday’s attack had installed bulletproof windows and had stocked bulletproof vests for their staff. And it isn’t because Mike Huckabee’s “pro-life” movement has a history of peaceful protests against them.

On the contrary, the supposed "Center for Medical Progress" responsible for current Republican rhetoric against Planned Parentood is a barely disguised offshoot of one of the most violent and prodigious enablers of past "pro-life" domestic terrorism in the nation. It is not even remotely credible for Mike Huckabee, deeply involved in the far-right "pro-life" movement himself and a fellow distributor of those propaganda efforts, to not be aware of the connection.