AN ANNIVERSARY OF Ethnic Slaughter

The abortion industry has had a greater impact on African-Americans than any other ethnic group in America. According to Dr. Clenard Childress, “Blacks represent the only ethnic group in the country whose numbers are declining.” 

According to the current issue of Christianity Today, the disproportionate number of abortions among African Americans has spurred prolifers to charge that abortion providers are systematically targeting blacks and other minority groups for abortion. “Presently, for every two African-American women who get pregnant, one will choose to abort” (Rev. Dr. Clenard Childress Jr., the founder of (www.blackgenocide.org).

As the nation celebrates another anniversary of that 1973 landmark decision by the Supreme Court (Roe v. Wade), the African-American community should be in tears. Since that time the community has lost more than 18 million lives, some one third of the present African-American population. In other words, the community is losing more than 1,300 babies a day.

Statistics from The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirm that abortion is the leading cause of death in African-American communities. As a matter of fact, since 1973, more African-Americans have lost their lives to abortion than to heart disease, cancer, accidents, violent crimes or AIDS combined. This means that although African-Americans represent only 13% of the population of the United States, they account for some 36% of the abortions performed in the country (Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm).

The city-by-city statistics are staggering. For instance, about 60% of abortions done in New York City are done on black women. The Pennsylvania Department of Health reports that about 50% of black babies are aborted each year since 1973.

To whom do we turn to avert this genocide? We cannot depend on the politicians in Washington to respond to this phenomenon. Currently in Congress, every member of the Black Caucus can be identified as pro-choice. The result of this ideological position means that there are almost no African American voices raised in defense of the unborn in the nation’s legislative branch.

Within the church, some are afraid to touch the subject – they believe “this world is not my home…I’m just a-passing through.” The attitude, leave it alone, we are pilgrims.

Thankfully, that has not always been the attitude of the church. The late Dr. James Kennedy, in his book, What if Jesus Had Never Been Born, contends that “it was a dangerous thing for a baby to be conceived in classical Rome or Greece. In those days, abortion was rampant. It was common for infirmed babies or unwanted little ones to be taken out into the forest or the mountainside, to be consumed by wild animals or to starve or to be picked up by rather strange people. Parents abandoned virtually all deformed babies.”

In ancient Rome, Christians saved many of these babies and brought them up in the faith. Abortion disappeared in the early Church. Infanticide and abandonment disappeared. The cry went out to bring the children to church. This was the environ-ment in which orphanages and nursery-homes were started to care for the children. These new practices, based on a higher view of life, helped to create a foundation in Western civilization for an ethic of human life.

It was that higher view of life, often referred to as the sanctity of life, to which many Christians were committed throughout history. As a result, women were treated with dignity. The most recent issue of Christian History reminds us of the role of the church in establishing hospitals and health care centers in the first century.

It was that Christian understanding of the sanctity of life that challenged slavery, cannibalism, animal rights and sati, as was practiced for centuries in India.

I share the view, that if you remove the teachings of Jesus from the history of the world, life would be devalued. Janine Simpson illustrates this in her story, published in the current issue of Christianity Today. Janine and her girl friends didn’t think twice about having abortions. In her all-black Detroit neighborhood, teen abortions were the norm…the local abortion clinic was a fixture.

After Simpson’s own abortion in her freshman year of college, things changed. She became a Christian and after graduation developed a passion to help other women with unplanned pregnancies. Today she is an ordained minister assisting hundreds of teenagers to value healthy sexuality and the sanctity of human life.  

Honestly, I still believe Jesus makes a difference! We have almost 2,000 years of history with stories like Janine Simpson to prove the point.