This is a fetus at 15 weeks. In the United States, babies in utero can be killed after 24 weeks for “serious health reasons” only.
Child killing transcends race. If that sentence was unclear, let me say it another way. I don’t care what color a baby is, as long as he lives.
I read this article, “Blacks’ Abortions Tragically Ignored,” and felt no sympathy for so-called “ignored” black women, but plenty for their dead babies. I try to take Dawson Bell seriously as he writes:
But there is another that almost never gets mentioned by politicians black or white. Some are even reluctant to call it an ill or an injustice. But it is hard to think of it as anything other than a tragedy.It is the shockingly high number of African-American women who have had abortions. In Michigan last year alone, black women had 10,911 abortions. (For the sake of comparison, 1,283 Michiganders of all ages and races died in traffic accidents in 2003).
The numbers are highlighted in a new report produced by Right to Life of Michigan from state Department of Community Health data, which is broken down by race for the first time this year.
The report shows that African-American women of childbearing age were three times as likely to have had an abortion last year as were women of other races. Black women, who comprise less than 16 percent of the female population in Michigan, obtained more than 38 percent of all abortions.
According to the RTLM report, if African Americans in Michigan had abortions at a rate comparable to women of other races, the number of abortions overall in Michigan would be 25 percent lower.
One can argue that the high rate of abortion among African Americans is not an ill unto itself, but a symptom of underlying problems like poverty and family breakdown.
Thus, if young, black, pregnant women had the kind of financial and family support available to women of other races, they would be no more likely to terminate their pregnancies. [I assume this is an op-ed because Dawson is editorializing here.]
That black women are three times more likely to have an abortion isn’t new information, by the way. I don’t like this article because race, and not immorality, is the focus. Race, or more precisely “racism,” is used as the standard excuse for immoral behavior. I recommend you visit a site called Black Genocide (WARNING: Site contains images of aborted babies).
I addressed abortion and race, but from a different angle, in two columns I wrote in January and February 2003, Irreverent Reverend I and II. My indignation was directed toward “men of God” who support (and advocate) child killing. I’d like to re-run these columns, beginning with Part I.
***
January 2003
My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret…Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. — Psalm 139:15 and 16
King David — Israel’s greatest king — wrote these words in awe of how well God knew him, even in his mother’s womb. Written 3,000 years ago, these same words are true for every human being who has ever lived.
Even for those who were never born.
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a woman had a Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy during her pregnancy to legally kill her fetus. On January 22, 2003, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) “celebrated” the 30th anniversary of the landmark decision, and 42 million babies cried out. Although black women make up only 13 percent of the female population, 34 percent of the cries were from black babies.
In attendance were Al Sharpton — a Pentecostal minister who has yet to promote anything remotely Christian — and five other Democratic presidential candidates, who sat on stage like court jesters ready to entertain the radical feminist queens of the NARAL. When told by one of the abortion protestors that real Christians don’t support abortion rights, Sharpton said, “It is time for the Christian Right to meet the right Christians.”
And the show was on.
Jockeying for political position, “Reverend” Sharpton has long since abandoned his call to share the Gospel with all the world, just as his predecessor “Reverend” Jesse Jackson, when he made a presidential run for it back in 1988. Neither Sharpton nor Jackson will ever be president of these United States, but that’s beside the point.
Al Sharpton should be ashamed for supporting the bloody slaughter of innocence babies. Jesse Jackson should be ashamed for doing a flip-flop on his stand against abortion 26 years ago. They now preach to black Americans, not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but that it’s acceptable to kill their own babies.
In 1977, Jesse Jackson wrote an article for Right to Life News where he expounded upon what a man of God should believe — that the connection of sperm and egg in fertilization is not accidental, but providential. “It takes three to make a baby: a man, a woman, and the Holy Spirit…Anything growing is living. Therefore human life begins when the sperm and egg join…”
To appeal to a liberal white base, Jackson adopted a pro-choice stance, discarding his obligation as a minister of God and to his own community. Jackson and Sharpton have surrendered to the lure of publicity and power. Protecting black women and children just doesn’t have the same enticement.
The Reverends are probably unaware that black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion.
The Reverends are probably unaware that studies show induced abortions increase the risk of breast cancer; black women have a higher breast cancer mortality rate than white women. Women who’ve had abortions are also at a much greater risk to deliver premature babies because of damage done to the cervix during abortion procedures.
The Reverends are surely unaware that, under the guise of reproductive planning and supported by the Democratic party, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America operates 70 percent of its abortion clinics in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. This abortion factory was founded in 1923 by a genocidal racist named Margaret Sanger and two other known racists. She spoke at a KKK rally, supported eugenics (read: Hitler), considered blacks “socially undesirable people” and once said: “More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief aim of birth control.”
In the late 1930s, Sanger devised a program called the “Negro Project” to use black ministers and doctors to spread her message of contraception, sterilization, and abortion in the black community. Over sixty years later, black “leaders” are still being duped by this genocidal swindle. When 90 percent of voting black Americans cast the ballot for the Democratic Party, they perpetuate a child-killing agenda.
And the slaying continues.
Like King David, Jesse Jackson once feared God. He wrote in 1977: “What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society, will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?”
Tell us, Jesse, what kind of society do you think that would be?
Addendum: Nat Hentoff on Jesse Jackson:
This disdain on the left for anything or anyone pro-life has clearly taken a toll on the political process. Liberal/left politicians who remain true to their philosophy and oppose abortion are virtually impossible to find. Like [Jesse] Jackson, most simply cave in to abortion rights pressure, fearing that no matter how left-leaning they are on other issues, if they come out against abortion they will be branded as right-wing fanatics….I saw Jesse Jackson recently on a train, and we talked for quite a while about George Bush’s awful nomination of Ed Carnes to the federal bench. An assistant attorney general in Alabama, Carnes built his reputation of sending people to “Yellow Mama,” the state’s electric chair. He would replace Frank Johnson, whom Martin Luther King once described as “the man who gave true meaning to the word justice.” (A few weeks later Jackson joined the campaign to defeat the nomination. To no avail. Carnes was eventually confirmed.) I then asked Jackson about another form of execution. I told him that in speeches I often quote what he wrote as a pro-lifer. He looked uncomfortable. I asked him if he still believed what he said then. “I’ll get back to you on that,” he said. He hasn’t yet.
LaShawn, let us not forget that Planned Parenthood was started as a way to rid society of those of the African race.
It makes me physically ill.
Comment by Jeannie — 09.16.04 @ 7:15 pm
Right on.
One of the more convoluded things is that Planned Parenthood tries to:
A) Hide the reality of who Sanger was
B) Contort the truth to make it seem like she was good-intentioned.
I agree with you La Shawn that race should not really be the focus. I often contend that statistics that break down abortion rates need additional accountability because the factors involved in arriving at certain figures are often questionable.
That said, the “Irreverent Reverends” will be held accountable for their actions, or lack thereof with regards to this issue. It’s amazing that Sanger’s philosophy still has a deceptive hold on so many people. That is true manipulation and wickness.
Comment by Ambra Nykol — 09.16.04 @ 7:18 pm
Yep, Sanger wished to “reduce the overpopulation of Negroes and other unfit people”. This murderous venture has been cunningly successful, I’d say.
Comment by Mark Slater — 09.16.04 @ 7:21 pm
Preach on, La Shawn
Comment by Andy — 09.16.04 @ 8:27 pm
Thanks for your reflections, La Shawn.
The act of abortion has always been regarded as evil, at least in Christian societies. But today, in the “civilized” West, we’re dealing with at least two further layers of evil on top of the original one constituted by the act of abortion itself. Not only do we have permissive abortion laws (layer one), but we have the aggressive promotion of abortion as part of the aggressive promotion of a whole perverse worldview (layer two).
What’s amazing about this worldview—and perhaps we have here yet a third layer of evil—is that, while clothing itself in the language of justice and compassion (and there are no doubt some souls who somehow manage to be sincere about this), it is really an expression of a lack of a basic pre-requisite precisely for justice and compassion: the belief that the transmitting life is worthwhile even when (as it always does) it involves the sacrifice of immediate comfort.
Abortion, taken not just as an act, but as a symptom of a cultural state of mind, is a sign of a nihilistic retreat from the greatness of the human condition, which is manifested (only), to quote Mother Teresa, in “giving until it hurts.”
Adrian
Comment by adrian — 09.16.04 @ 8:45 pm
I’m currently 15 weeks pregnant with my fourth child, and it makes me sick to my stomach at the ‘justification’ for abortion. At 12 weeks you can hear a heartbeat. I felt movement at 11 weeks.
I’m also still pursuing my degree and in a zoology class we were just tested on the qualifications to be classified as a living organism which were cellular structure, reproductive capabilities, growth, adaptation, movement, and response to stimuli. So the debate was sparked as to why modern medicine won’t apply the term “living organism” to an unborn baby at conception. Guess what? He couldn’t answer it. Yet we were supposed to swallow a line of thought that says humans are not to be valued above the natural world.
I just can’t fathom how some people’s thinking is so completely warped from reality.
Comment by jae — 09.16.04 @ 9:02 pm
LaShawn,
can you provide a link that shows that Jesse Jackson became pro-choice. I keep hearing it but I don’t see information that supports what is said.
Comment by DarkStar — 09.16.04 @ 9:44 pm
Thanks, LaShawn for your passion and courage. Thanks for speaking so eloquently.
I hope and pray for the day that this obscene practice will cease.
I watched Father John Neihaus speak today on C-Span. He chided the Catholic Church for allowing Catholics for having things both ways - holding to a theology of death and still receiving the sacraments of the Church.
As an Evangelical I’m also dismayed that far too few of our leaders are really speaking out against abortion. They seem to be too busy building megachurches.
Father Neihaus also sounded the warning that’s been forgotten by too many. Once you take/make the position that “viability” and “choice” are the determining factors in the matter of who lives or dies, you’ve descended into the darkness. It will only be matter of time from there till the old or the infirm or politcal enemies can be determined to be “non viable” the “choice” will be made to do away with them.
Comment by Phil Dillon — 09.16.04 @ 10:09 pm
I consider anyone attending or speaking at a pro-abortion rally “pro-abortion.” I have a subcription to Keep Media, and this is the first paragraph of an article title “New Choice”:
The last time the pro-choice movement converged on the capital for a major abortion-rights rally, in 1992, the scene was very different from Sunday’s March for Women’s Lives. Then, the crowd that filled the Mall was primarily white, female, and baby-boomer. Thousands held round blue signs that read keep abortion legal . Jesse Jackson and Jane Fonda were featured speakers. And the event was spearheaded by the National Organization for Women (NOW), which, after the disappearance of the Equal Rights Amendment as a national issue in 1983, made abortion a raison d’etre.
Cal Thomas - Jesse’s Loss of Moral Authority.”
Comment by La Shawn — 09.16.04 @ 10:21 pm
I looked at LEARN. Hmm…liberals were pro-slavery. Liberals were (and are) pro-birth control. Planned Parenthood grew out of Nazis. Liberals are pro-abortion. Do I detect a trend here?
Comment by Shayne — 09.16.04 @ 11:05 pm
Oh, and liberals are also anti-semetic, too.
Comment by Shayne — 09.16.04 @ 11:06 pm
http://www.fetal-surgery.com/fs-pics.htm
Not sure how many of you have seen these photos, they were widely circulated a few years ago. They are of spina bifida surgery in utero that saved a baby’s life. During the surgery, the fetus gripped the finger of the surgeon, and Life Magazine published a photo of it. Truly amazing, and a little grisly - they are surgery photos - but they are photos that I come back to time and again for the sheer miracle of life.
Comment by Jeannie — 09.16.04 @ 11:42 pm
Shayne, I’d also add that a great deal of America (in general) is probably anti-semetic…
Comment by Ambra Nykol — 09.16.04 @ 11:53 pm
Ambra, what do you mean by “anti-semetic”? I understand what the term means, but when you say that “a great deal of America” feels that way, I’m not really “there” with you. Do you simply mean prejudice toward those of other ethnicities (in the general sense of “my way is better than your way simply b/c it’s my way”) or are you speaking specifically of attitudes toward Jews?
Comment by LawWife — 09.17.04 @ 9:28 am
La Shawn, I wonder about these statistics. Do they factor in women who abort simply b/c they don’t wish to deal with health issues in their children (Down syndrome and other genetic syndromes come immediately to mind) or are they generalizing about the population of black women who abort?
Comment by LawWife — 09.17.04 @ 9:32 am
The most suprising thing about that article was that it even appeared in the Detroit Free Press. Sometimes the truth slips through I guess.
Comment by Jeff Miller — 09.17.04 @ 9:43 am
Whatever the race, color or creed the reality is that abortion has become a barbaric form of female empowerment.
NOW represents MEDEA.
Comment by syn — 09.17.04 @ 10:36 am
Take NO prisoners LaShawn!!! And please, continue to call evil evil and sin sin. Too many people play with the words in Orwellian fashion to shape the public ability to think clearly. Too much political correctness and reluctance to stand up and say something is wrong for fear of offending someone. As if the intentional killing of a child in utero isn’t offensive to God.
“Evil’s still evil, by any other name”. - Don Henley, All She Wants to Do is Dance.
Michael
Comment by michael — 09.17.04 @ 3:26 pm
LawWife,
Unfortunately, the statistics are for everything, and nationwide they show the same thing: minority women have abortions at far higher rates than our numbers would suggest. Back during the “March for Women’s Lives” (ha) in April, I linked to some of the numbers directly from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm. The statistics also show that the *vast* majority of abortions (at least 95%) are not done for “health” issues, but rather reasons such as “already had desired number of children,” “wasn’t the right time,” etc. It’s distressing stuff.
Comment by Kimberly — 09.17.04 @ 4:33 pm
Just yesterday we got to see the video of an ultrasound on or grandchild, about 15 weeks old inside momma’s belly. That baby has a strong heart which we could see beating, fingers, toes, a nice spinal column, and a mouth that spoke to us.
My thoughts the entire time I watched were of how anyone can see that and believe an abortion is not murder.
Comment by Mike — 09.17.04 @ 5:18 pm
Thanks, Mike. All the unconvinced need to do is look at the picture of that 15-week-old baby I posted to see that he/she is a human life, precious and worthy of protection.
Comment by La Shawn — 09.17.04 @ 5:36 pm
That’s right—abortion is one issue that, despite proponents’ rhetoric about “moral complexity,” is actually black and white:
what’s in the womb is an individual human being (what else would it be, pray tell?); it’s always wrong to kill invidividual human beings (when they’re not guilty of any crime); therefore abortion is always wrong.
Of course, someone might want to say that there are no intrinsically immoral acts, and that good and evil are just a matter of consequences. But that utilitarian logic serves to justify any horror.
The same thing would apply even if someone said that it’s not all acts, but only the ones pertaining to sex and reproduction that are to be judged good or bad by their consequences. And anyway, why single out just those as utilitarian poster-children—unless you’ve got a sexual revolution axe to grind?
Needless to say, it’s God’s business, not ours, to judge the subjective guilt that a woman who has an abortion thereby incurs. But that changes nothing about the evil of the act itself.
Adrian
Comment by adrian — 09.17.04 @ 9:26 pm