Democratic Senator Chris Murphy (Conn.), condemned his anti-abortion Republican counterparts on Tuesday after several speeches on the Senate floor against abortion, accusing them hypocrisy following the tragic school shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan.
Murphy posted on Twitter that he was driving home and thought about the speeches that Republicans had made on Tuesday regarding the “sanctity” of life. In anticipation of oral arguments by the Supreme Court in a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, many Republican legislators condemned abortion.
Murphy wrote that Murphy’s concern for “life” apparently does not extend to Michigan’s children who were gunned down today at a school there. “So I turned my car around and went to the Senate Floor.”
Tonight, driving home, I was struck by the Republican floor speech on the “sanctity and life” today.
This is how it seems that this concern for “life,” doesn’t apply to the children who were shot in a Michigan school today.
I then turned the car around and went to the Senate Floor. pic.twitter.com/yJ8FthS0nE
Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT December 1, 2021
Murphy, who spoke on the Senate floor expressed his anger at the acceptance of gun violence in America. At least three people were killed and eight were hurt in the shooting. The suspect, a 15 year-old sophomore, was arrested.
“I know that my Republican colleagues hold strong views on abortion issues. “But I listened as my Republican colleagues came down here today and talked about the sanctity and life. This was the exact moment when moms and fathers in Michigan were being informed that their children weren’t coming home after they were shot at school by a country that accepts gun violence because Republicans support the gun lobby,” Murphy stated.
It happens because we let it happen here in America. We are not unlucky. This is intentional. This is a decision made by the United States Senate. He continued, saying that lawmakers were sending a “silent message of endorsement” for potentially dangerous individuals by failing to act to prevent gun violence.
Murphy said, “I’m past my tipping point.”
He added, “Please, my colleagues, if possible, come down to this place and discuss the sanctity life. Explain to the American people how the gun lobby is more important than the safety of our children walking into schools every day fearing for the lives of their lives.”
Murphy, shortly after his speech, appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes. He explained that he was driving home when he became furious at the lack of concern from his Republican colleagues for the “sanctity and life after birth.”
Murphy told Hayes that he was at his wits’ end as to why Republicans’ concern for the life of their children seems so limited, when the options we have to protect them are so obvious and so politically popular.
