Recently prolife advocate Abby Johnson shared the picture below on her Facebook page, along with this caption: “The abortion war against black women is so real. This is on a billboard in Dallas.”
Several years ago, John Piper preached on the question of “When Is Abortion Racism?” He said:
In the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857, the Supreme Court held that Black slaves were property without rights as free persons. But today, we rightly view that as unthinkable. My hope is that even though the Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade case of 1973 did not give the unborn the rights of free persons, nevertheless, the day may come when that too is viewed as unthinkable. Racism might—and often did—result in the killing of innocent humans in our history, it often did. But abortion always results in the killing of innocent humans. Between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 Black people were lynched in America. Today more Black babies are killed by white abortionists every three days than all who were lynched in those years (Life Education and Resource Network).
As I’ve shared in the past on my blog, Planned Parenthood’s abortion advocacy was rooted in the eugenics movement and its bias against the mentally and physically handicapped and minorities, all of which are historical facts. This history helps to explain why to this day Planned Parenthood does virtually nothing to promote adoption or help poor and minority women who choose to give their children life rather than abort them. The fact that there are some highly visible African Americans and other minority leaders in Planned Parenthood does not change its heritage or philosophy. It simply makes it easier to carry out its policies among target groups. The same is true of other abortion promoting organizations and clinics.
To clarify, I do not believe that most people who support abortion rights are racists, any more than I believe there are no racists among pro-lifers. I am simply suggesting that a closer look at both the history and present strategies of the pro-choice movement, regardless of motives, suggests that “abortion for the minorities” may not serve the cause of equality as much as the cause of supremacy for the healthy, wealthy, and white.
BlackGenocide.org shares these statistics about the effects of abortion on the Black community:
On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.
This incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 16 million abortions. Michael Novak had calculated “Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 36 million, the missing 16 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America’s Black community would now number 52 million persons. It would be 36 percent larger than it is. Abortion has swept through the Black community like a scythe, cutting down every fourth member.”
Jemar Tisby, president of the Reformed African American Network, writes this in his article Christian, pro-life and black: Advocating for all of life:
God loves the little children, but black babies are dying by the score. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, an African American woman is almost five times more likely to have an abortion than a white woman. In the state of Mississippi, white women had 665 abortions in 2006, or 22.6 percent of all abortions in that state. By comparison, black women had 2,250 abortions or 76.3 percent of the total.
Finally, let me recommend Greg Morse’s excellent article “The Monumental Problem: Hashtag Acticism and Covert Racism.” Here’s a portion of it:
I used to roll my eyes when someone would post articles about abortion. As a black man, it seemed like a distant problem from me and the community. Then it wasn’t.
I remember feeling asphyxiated as I read and studied. The institution has millions and millions of racial skeletons in its closet. When Satan’s spell is finally broken, the abortion clinic will be held in the same infamy as lynching ropes, metal shackles, and slave ships. If not in this life, then most certainly in the next.
The blindness staggers. Cries of racism can be heard at every turn and yet a great silence ensues concerning a multimillion dollar company (Planned Parenthood) capitalizing off of dead black babies? Hmm . . .
It has roots in a racist eugenics program called The Negro Project, check. Sanger desired to limit the population of the “feeble minded” and spoke at a KKK rally, check. Most abortion clinics are in disenfranchised, minority communities, check.
And new minority skeletons are added every day.
Around 950 black children—each with ten fingers and ten toes—are devoured every single day. Forty every hour. Villainous men in hoods—or now without hoods—cannot accomplish the level of carnage that men in white coats inflict daily. No days off. No relenting in this evil institution. This historic relic, this monument to racial supremacy and eugenics, needs to fall.
And we must call for it to fall. We detest racial supremacy in all forms—especially against the most vulnerable minority population on the planet. Our Facebook statuses cannot be filled with tons of outrage over a group of whites hating blacks in Charlottesville, while never saying anything about the abortion clinic down the street that dismembers minority children.
As Ismael Hernandez rightfully said, “Past racists snatched black babies from their mother’s arms and sold them into slavery. Today they snatch them from their mother’s womb and throw them in the garbage.”
May God continue to raise up African American spokespeople to intervene for unborn black children. And may all of us speak up for the unborn and their mothers of every race and nationality.
Meanwhile, may pro-lifers everywhere also speak up for racial justice. If we stand for the right of minority children to live, that same sense of God-inspired justice should compel us to stand up for their rights as long as they live.
In that regard, here are some blogs I’ve written on racial justice:
Brotherhood and the Color of Our Skin
Charlottesville: Reminding Everyone that Racism is Alive and Ugly
Dream with Me: One of My Heroes, John Perkins
