Abortion has devastating legacy in the black community
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 17, 2006
Detroit – During Black History Month, people in Detroit can reflect on the legacies of many great black Christians who led the United States to being a country of freedom: Harriet Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, etc.
But the battle for freedom isn’t over until all are free to live – including the unborn.
With a predominantly black population, Detroit appears to be in a historic struggle against abortion. Though abortion is a travesty for all races, some national figures and organizations are pointing out the prevalence of it in black communities especially.
One of them is Alveda King, Ph.D., niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It is time for America, perhaps the most blessed nation on Earth, to lead the world in repentance and in restoration of life,” said Alveda King, who visited Detroit in December to speak at a pro-life gathering. “Abortion is at the forefront of our destruction.”
The Life Education and Resource Network – a New Jersey-based national Christian organization concerned with protecting the unborn and promoting family values – reports that black women are more than three times more likely as white women to have abortions.
Using numbers from the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the network shows that 13 million abortions have been performed on black children since 1973. That’s nearly three times the number of deaths in the black community than caused by heart disease, cancer, accidents, violent crimes and AIDS combined.
In Wayne County, which includes Detroit and some suburbs west of it, 332 babies were killed in the womb for every 1,000 children that were born between 2001 and 2003, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health. Wayne County’s abortion rates were approximately twice as high as the abortion rates of the other five counties in the archdiocese.
Alveda King, a nondenominational Christian, has worked closely with a number of pro-life organizations around the country, including Priests for Life and the predominantly Catholic Silent No More campaign. In the early 1970s, King had had two abortions – one of which was involuntary.
It was later in life that King, now a mother of eight, realized that the fight for freedom wasn’t over – it simply had moved.
“We’re no longer on the bus,” she said, referring to the heroic actions of Parks that sparked the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, a major chapter of the Civil Rights movement.
“Now we’re fighting it in the womb.
“Dr. King also said during his lifetime that the Negro cannot win if he’s willing to sacrifice the right of his children for his own comfort and safety.”
Fr. Clarence Williams, CPps, director of black Catholic ministries for the Archdiocese of Detroit, said the numbers showing an increased abortion rate in the black community are misleading, noting that there are larger numbers of unreported abortions that take place in the non-black community.
Still, he said, whatever the color of the community, abortion has ravaged a generation of Americans.
“We’ve aborted a whole generation of white, black and Hispanic infants,” Fr. Williams said. “Our pulpits have been silent for 25 years, so we’ve missed a whole generation that would have filled those pews.”
The responsibility to stop abortion, he added, is one that falls on the shoulders of all Christians. Because it’s an unpleasant and sensitive subject, too many people have swept it under the rug or haven’t shed the light of truth on the subject.
“It’s like a dysfunctional family in that it’s something you don’t talk about,” he said.
The way to heal the country and confront the travesty, he said, is first of all to have Catholics open their eyes to the pain abortion brings.
“The first thing we can do is realize the affect of abortion in our personal lives,” he said.
It’s also largely a matter of leadership and trumpeting the message from pulpits and other places of authority, he added. For people such as Alveda King, who has a famed passion for freedom running in her bloodline, it comes naturally.
After all, in King’s eyes and the eyes of many, slavery still exists.
How can the ‘dream’ survive if we murder the children?” she said. “Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.”
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