Black Pro-Lifers Rally Over 'Racist' Abortion Providers
Dozens of black pastors and pro-life advocates converged on Capitol Hill Thursday to protest outside the Democratic and Republican National Headquarters because of what they claimed was a silence on "racist" abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.
Abortion, they said, has hit black communities hard. Eighty percent of Planned Parenthood facilities are in minority neighborhoods, and nearly 40 percent of all black babies are aborted every year, according to surveys – a statistic that black pro-lifers say is no accident.
Earlier this year, the pro-choice organization was rocked with scandal after videos released by a pro-life student group at UCLA alleged that the abortion provider had accepted donations solely for the purpose of aborting black babies.
"It's an anti-civil rights act to support Planned Parenthood," said Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., while noting the huge abortion rates that were destroying African American communities, in a statement.
"[Martin Luther King, Jr.] was a non-violent man that could not have sanctioned the murders of all the children," she added, according to The Hill's Blog.
King, who herself has had two abortions, was among those who chided both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for doing to little to combat the pro-choice organization.
Last year alone, the demonstrators noted, the group had received over $300 million in federal funding, recorded over $1 billion in profits, and gave $10 million to pro-choice political candidates.
"Political donations from Planned Parenthood are racist at their very core," said Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, according to The Hill's Blog.
"We are urging candidates to stand up for civil rights for all Americans by turning the blood money down," she added.
According to The Advocate, the UCLA group that released the allegedly racist Planned Parenthood video recordings in March, the effect of abortion on African Americans has been nothing short of "genocide."
Fourteen million African American babies have been aborted since 1973, constituting the largest source of African American deaths, exceeding that of terrorism, cancer, AIDS, and heart disease combined, the group says.
Last year, Planned Parenthood facilities performed 289,570 abortions at its over 800 locations – the highest number of abortions on record.