Pro-Lifers Rally to Raise Black Community's Abortion Awareness

by Jenni Parker
November 15, 2004

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(AgapePress) - A pro-life group in Tennessee is calling attention to one of the most serious threats to the Black community in the United States. Black Americans for Life, an outreach of the nation's largest pro-life organization, National Right to Life, says the fact that the abortion rate among black women is three times higher than that of white women is no accident.

Late last month, a Tennessee chapter of Black Americans for Life (BAL) held the "Life of a People Rally," an event that brought several pro-life leaders, activists, and community members together to address the devastating impact of abortion on the black community. Nashville pastor Rev. Henry Coles, Jr. of Word of Faith Christian Center hosted the rally, which presented speakers from BAL and from Hope Clinic for Women, an area crisis pregnancy center, as well as guest speakers from the Justice Foundation's Operation Outcry and its "Silent No More" campaign.

Day Gardner, national director of the Washington, DC-based Black Americans for Life organization, notes that black women make up only 13.7 percent of the U.S. population of women of child-bearing age. Yet, she says the abortion rate among black women is three times higher than that of white women. BAL believes the disproportionate numbers can be explained in part by the fact that 70% of all abortion providers are in minority communities.

"After all that we, as Black Americans, have endured and achieved, by the end of this day nearly 1,200 Black babies will be killed by abortion," Gardner laments. She says BAL is committed to saving the lives of Black babies through education and outreach, because "Through all our pain and suffering, it has always been our children who were our hope for a better future."

Facing Abortion: Challenges to the Black Church
At the October 30 rally in Tennessee, Nashville BAL member and chaplain Pastor Joseph Parker offered the welcome to area participants, local and regional speakers, and guests. During his remarks, he commented, "Tragically, so many people who consider themselves believers are strangely silent on the issue of abortion." Parker expressed the hope that the rally would result in many black Christians returning to their communities with a passion to become vocal pro-life advocates and educators.

The pastor of the hosting congregation, Rev. Coles, also issued a challenge to the Christian attendees, urging them to help transform both the perception and the reality of how the Church responds to those facing a crisis pregnancy. "For too long," the minister says, "the church has been looked upon as the place where ridicule and shame would be the result of having a child out of wedlock."

Coles says it is time for men and women of God to work toward making the church a place of refuge and help for people in this kind of trouble, and to "create an atmosphere of safety like that Jesus provided when he responded to the woman caught in adultery." The minister contends it is up to Christians to address abortion biblically, which includes creating "an atmosphere of safety, acceptance, and support" for those who are struggling with the prospect or the aftermath of abortion.

Coles says the Church must reach out to those who are facing an unwanted pregnancy or who have chosen the deceptive "solution" of abortion and had their lives devastated by it. They need to know that they can "run to the church and not away from it," the pastor says, "and that we will be here, operating in the unconditional love that Jesus commanded."

But then Williams pointed out that abortion kills more African Americans annually than crime, accidents, cancer, and AIDS combined. Besides destroying the lives of unborn babies, she says, abortion also destroys many black women's lives by exposing them to greater risks of life-endangering complications, disease, and emotional distress.

"Breast cancer is a life-threatening disease that is even more deadly among black women," Williams says. "One study shows that black women have a 2.8 to 4.7 times higher risk of developing breast cancer than other women." And since medical research has yielded substantial evidence of a link between abortion and breast cancer, she adds, this spells double trouble for black women.

Suicide statistics are exacerbated by abortion as well, Williams observes, noting, "The suicide rate of post-abortive women is nine times that of other women." So again, in a community already plagued by factors that can lead to premature death, abortion makes things worse.

The Nashville BAL spokeswoman also pointed out in her presentation that the repeat abortion rate in the U.S. is about 50 percent. In other words, she says, "One out of every two women who has an abortion today has already had one." And with each abortion, she notes, the risks of health problems and emotional scars is multiplied.

Williams says the abortion industry harms and victimizes women and unborn babies in the black community, not to mention the "forgotten victims" -- the fathers, siblings, grandparents and other family members and friends who are affected when a baby is aborted. "Abortion dishonors families, cheapens life, and steals from our people and our future," the pro-life leader says. "Who knows whether we haven't lost another Martin Luther King to abortion?"

Fighting Back
The Nashville BAL president urged members of the black community who attended the rally to become advocates for the unborn and other victims of abortion in their churches, neighborhoods and other areas of influence. She says there are several things concerned individuals can do, and advises people to pray about the issue; teach and promote the preciousness of life; and reach out to women who are facing unplanned pregnancy.

Also, Williams says more people need to get involved in promoting abstinence, educating others about the health risks of abortion, and ministering to those who are hurting from the experience of a past abortion. She urges members of the black community and others to join the fight against an evil industry that targets the innocent, especially in minority and poor communities, for extinction.