Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Abortion and the Black Community [Jay]

Last night I had the opportunity to teach a break out session in our CPC’s Prenatal Parenting Class. It was a tough audience of roughly 10 men that came to the class with the mothers of their children. Our Director decided we should try to do a “Dad Session” with them. It may strike some of you as hard to believe that my public speaking is often characterized as passionate and a bit confrontational. (I will wait a moment while you all recover from the shock of hearing that) I tried to stay on focus and leave the men with a few basic ideas. They will have a tremendous impact, positive or negative, on their children whether they want to or not. Loving our children and participating in their lives is the best way to equip them to deal with the challenges of life. God loves them and their children. (Of course of all of the info I gave them the God part made them the most uncomfortable)

What the heck does any of this have to do with bio-ethics and life issues you ask? Well after I finished, one of the men came over to talk to me. He was a black man, about 40ish, in normal casual wear and very articulate. He told me he was a counselor and worked in a ministry trying to help the black community in our area break some of the destructive life patterns that persistently passed from generation to generation. As he ran through statistics he started to talk about the number of abortions in the black community of the United States and asked me why the black church leaders will not speak out. I told him that they were not the only Christian leaders afraid to say something on Sunday or in public about the issue of abortion, but he would have none of that. The thing that struck me the most was a moment while we were discussing figures. I knew of or was familiar with every statistic that he shared, but there was something about the look in his eyes as he relayed them. “Black women are three times more likely to get an abortion and represent 1/3 of all surgical abortions in the United States though we are around 13% of the population. I have read that 47% of black pregnancies end in abortion, so that is half of our children we have killed right there.” The last sentence absolutely stopped the conversation. He looked at the floor for a moment overwhelmed with emotion. His eyes were all at once pained and enraged.

I often appeal for passion and outrage on the issue of abortion, and this conversation reminds me why it is so important. I will supply links on this post to sites that give statistics for you to sort through if you wish, and if any of the other guys have other resources I invite them to put them down as well. This should give you the chance to evaluate the numbers yourself as much as possible. Any way you evaluate them, the statistics as it pertains to the black community are heartbreaking. The numbers were just numbers before last night, though. A man who loves the black community and is fighting to save and transform this culture changed that. I am haunted by that moment and the look in this man's eyes. “So that is half our children we have killed right there.” His people are being killed from within, and he can not understand why the leaders of his community refuse to say something. I had no answer that satisfied him.

Links: Abort.73 on minority statistics, Black Genocide.org, an article in 2003 from NRO’s Anne Hendershott asking the same question of black leaders, Georgia Right to Life on the numbers locally here in GA for 2005.

3 comments:

  1. Jay,
    I have spoken to leaders of the Black community about the abortion statistics and I have gotten many different responses.

    They have ranged from "I don't believe you" to "You've got to be kidding" to the type of heart-breaking response that you received.

    One of the leaders that I spoke to wanted to know why I would want to force a homeless woman who had been raped by another street person to have a baby when she couldn't even care for herself. Another pastor wanted to know why we (in the pro-life movement) don't get more involved in providing birth control to the black community since we know that the young girls are going to "do it anyway" and that would prevent abortions.

    Of course, I answered these and more questions like them, but I remember coming away from that meeting with a heavy, heavy heart.

    We will continue to educate but it would be a lot easier if the leadership would get it right and start to speak out for Life.

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  2. Dr. Lyn,

    I had written a longer response which I just deleted. I want to think about all of this some more before commenting further. Thank you for sharing your insight and for your continued work. I am constantly saddened by those who see abortion as a solution to social issues. Other than the obvious immorality of the position, it has failed to produce positive results for 35 years. Time for a new plan because "just kill the problem away" appears ineefective.

    God bless,
    Jay

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  3. Margaret Sanger, who some call the mother of Planned Parenthood, was a bigot. I remember reading somewhere that she said that the offspring of poor southern whites, blacks, and Jews, needed to be pulled as weeds from the garden of society. Many blacks I have told this too, do not believe it. Can anyone help me find the quote I referenced? Been looking for a while. Best, Lori

    ReplyDelete

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