Restoring fatherhood will reduce abortion among blacks, pastor says
by Jim Brown
February 21, 2007
(OneNewsNow.com) - - A Los Angeles pastor commits a large amount of his time to fighting something he says continues to destroy thousands of black families every day -- abortion. Pastor Jesse Lee Peterson is calling on his fellow black preachers to join him and to enlist the help of their congregations to fight the presence of abortion clinics in their urban communities.Pastor Jesse Lee Peterson says abortion is tearing black families apart. Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), a Los Angeles-based organization that is dedicated to "rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man," according to its website. He recently told a Washington, DC, gathering of black pro-life leaders that in order to curb abortion, fatherhood must be restored to their communities.
"I believe that the reason this has happened within the black community is because [those communities] took the fathers out of the home first. They broke that 'order' of God," said Peterson. "Satan hates the family," he continued, "and if women and children don't have a righteous man over them to protect them, then the world can come in and feed them anything [and] tell them whatever they want them to know in order to destroy that family."
Husbands and responsible father figures are missing from the lives of far too many black mothers, said Peterson. He shared the experience of one young mother he is currently counseling -- a young mother who he said "tripped out" when told she was going to have twins and did not think she could handle the situation because she was unmarried.
"And I said to her, 'Don't worry. Why bring this other condemnation upon yourself by killing a baby in your womb? Have the babies; we'll take care of the babies,'" he counseled. According to Peterson, the woman chose not to abort and gave birth to identical twin girls. "They are two-years-old now," shared the BOND leader, "and they call me 'Grandpa' because I helped take care of her."
Peterson stated that many young girls and older women have told him that if they had had a husband or a man to stand by them, they would not have aborted their child.
