In my post earlier today, I quoted LeRoy Carhart about certain abortion protests being a hate crime, and I asked what prominent pro-life African Americans would say. In the comments thread, the Washington Times' Julia Duin points me to her article from this morning that answers that question:
But Dr. Carhart's comments at a Monday news conference, calling the Tiller death "the equivalent of Martin Luther King being assassinated," and comparisons of pro-life displays to the Ku Klux Klan brought an outraged response from Alveda King, niece of the slain civil rights leader.
"For LeRoy Carhart to mention the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who worked through peaceful and nonviolent means, in the same breath with that of George Tiller, whose work ended peace and brought violence to babies in the womb, is offensive beyond belief," she told The Washington Times on Tuesday. "The analogy is just wrong."Ms. King, a notable pro-life advocate, has called abortion a "racist, genocidal act." About 36 percent of the abortions in the United States are performed on blacks, who comprise just 17 percent of the live births.
"Dr. Carhart also speaks of hate crimes," Ms. King added, alluding to his denouncing pro-life protesters as hate criminals and comparing cross displays to the Ku Klux Klan. "I would simply ask him: Is it not hateful to regard an entire class of people as nonhuman because they're unwanted?"
One of the often-untold stories about abortion is how disproportionately it impacts minorities, especially African-Americans. A story from last year contained these statistics:
Blacks do, indeed, have much higher rates of abortions than whites or other minority groups. In 2000, while blacks made up 17 percent of live births, they made up more than twice that share of abortions (36 percent). If those aborted children had been born, the number of blacks born would have been slightly over 50 percent greater than it was.
The comparison with whites and other minorities is striking. Whites made up 78 percent of live births, but only 57 percent of abortions. Non-black minorities had 7 percent of live births and 5 percent of abortions. If the aborted children had been born for either group, the percentage increase in the number of children born to these groups would have been less than that for blacks: 16 and 32 percent, respectively.Data from 1973 on indicate that black women's share of abortions has consistently been at least twice their share of live births.
Given those numbers, some African-American pro-life leaders, including Alveda King, have begun to refer to their community's disproportionately high rate of abortions as "genocide." For many of them, and for many of us all who are pro-life, protesting peacefully against abortion is far from being a hate crime; it's a civil rights issue.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
"Among people under 18, I would prefer abstinence, but I realize that other options also need to be taught and made cheaply and freely avaible."
Among people under 18 I would also prefer responsible driving. But as that was not likely to happen with my children, I had liability insurance on my children when they drove. I also had uninsured/underinsured for those drivers who did not carry liability insurance of their own.
Um, well, excuse me, but the preborn are "actual" children. Birth is not what makes a person "actual", conception creates a unique human being, actually.
OK, Herman, you're excused.
I agree that conception creates a unique human zygote. But I guess your view that it creates a human being explains why the pro-life movement believes in holding funerals and inquests for every miscarriage, in treating attempts at in-vitro fertilization as murder-for-hire conspiracies, and in prosecuting women who get abortions (and everyone who assists them) for a capital crime. Right? You do believe in all that, right? Because surely the death of any "unique human being" demands no less.
Hector:
I know quite a few "pro-life" individuals who take your position, and I have no major quarrel with it. What I do not know of is any significant "pro-life" organization or institution that is also pro-contraception.
People who are anti-abortion and anti-contraception are IMHO making their priorities clear: contraception is worse than murder. No, I'm exaggerating: they're making it clear that they don't actually believe abortion is murder, because everyone agrees you're allowed to cut moral corners to prevent murder, much less something that's called "a Holocaust".
Doctor Science,
I'm not totally convinced. How necessary, and therefore justifiable, do you think it is to cut moral corners in situations that could have been avoided altogether in many cases?
o my g Abortion is no the key. Child was made by god whicfh makes killing it wrong
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.