I write before Christmas, but our first African-American
president should have been sworn in and the inaugural festivities
completed by the time you read this. On a more somber note, an
auxiliary bishop in Washington has drawn attention to something we
don’t hear enough about: the terrible toll that abortion has taken
on the black population.
A recent report by the Guttmacher Institute shows that
black women now have abortions at five times the rate of white
women. Among the 1.2 million babies aborted in the
U.S. each year--at least it’s down from 1.6
million in 1990--37 percent are black, 34 percent are non-Hispanic
white, and 22 percent are Hispanic.
“As an African American, I am saddened by evidence that
black women continue to be targeted by the abortion industry," said
Bishop Martin Holley. "The loss of any child from abortion is a
tragedy, but we must ask: Why are minority children being aborted
at such disproportionate rates?"
An answer of sorts was given years ago by the Black
Panthers, a militant group (since defunct), who were vehemently
opposed to abortion. When New York State legalized abortion in
1970, the Panthers warned that the “oppressive ruling class” would
use the new law to unleash a black “holocaust.”
It’s hard to recall that many black leaders were once
pro-life, among them the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “There are those who
argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right
to life,” he wrote in 1977. “But that was the premise of slavery.”
By dismissing the importance of abortion, he also said, we were in
danger of becoming “a Sodom and Gomorrah.” (He wouldn’t dare say
that today!)
Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., remembers
when Jackson went around the country
“calling abortion genocide.” She said, incidentally, that two of
her famous uncle’s grandchildren were aborted. Other abortion
opponents at that time included Julius Lester, Dick Gregory, and H.
Rap Brown.
Bishop Holley says that abortion is the leading cause of
death for blacks, with 13 million abortions so far. That is
one-third of the present African-American population. With most
Planned Parenthood clinics concentrated in inner cities, it is
reasonable for Bishop Holley to believe that blacks are being
targeted.
How things have changed. In the 1960s,
activists forced the closing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in a
black Pittsburgh neighborhood and
threatened riots if it were reopened. In Cleveland, a family
planning clinic was firebombed and several others were closed in
response to threats.
It is said that Jackson changed
his position when he ran for president. Maybe, but there was also
something else. The leadership realized that a black/feminist
coalition would have the votes in Congress to deliver taxpayer
dollars to constituent groups. Since then African American and
women’s groups have stuck together, and there hasn’t been a peep
about abortion from the Congressional Black Caucus. Dissenters like
former Rep. J. C. Watts refused to join the caucus.
Maybe President Obama will pay attention but my guess is
not. The issue just doesn’t compute for him anyway. Most blacks
will vote for him whatever his position on abortion. But without
his support on the issue, the feminists would turn on
him.
Rhetorically and in every way, the “pro-choice” movement
today is dominated by feminists. Their code words are part of our
political discourse: “reproductive rights,” “reproductive freedom,”
“reproductive health needs.” These are the pro-abortion euphemisms
of our time. The Panthers, with their ruling-class talk, seem
almost clear-headed by comparison. Today’s activists are within the
citadel and what they demand is money and still more money. I
personally would love to see the blacks turning against their
feminist overseers, with whom they have so little in common. But it
won’t happen. The black leadership has been showered with programs
and money and sees no reason to change.
The underlying problem is the collapse of the black
family--a consequence of the welfare that black leaders support.
The self-interest of leadership groups is in this instance at odds
with the interest of the rank and file. Publicity about group
victimhood will fill coffers and help the bosses, but the rank and
file will suffer because victimhood, whether real or imagined, is
never beneficial to those who must play that role.
In 1950, about 15 percent of black children were born to
unmarried mothers, but by 1965, with millions of new jobs
available, that had increased to 24 percent. Fatherlessness was
undermining the family. Warnings by Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan and
others were attacked as “racist myths” and “blaming the
victim.”
Since then, the black family “has unraveled in ways that
have little parallel in human cultures,” Kay Hymowitz wrote
recently. About 70 percent of black children are born to single
mothers today, and before birth they are a constant target for
abortion.
Obama gave a Father’s Day speech lamenting the fathers who
are missing “from too many lives and too many homes,” and told of
the price he had paid for growing up without a father. Yet Jesse
Jackson lashed out and actually said he would like to castrate
Obama.
Jesse sold out, that’s the problem. Blacks are paying the
price and he (and other leaders) will have a lot to answer
for.
A “coalition” welcoming Obama to Washington under the
banner “Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health” has demanded
another $1.5 billion. It includes African American Women Evolving,
Inc. and Black Women’s Health Imperative. But mostly it was the
usual feminist flock. (The Sierra Club, too, please note.) Obama
owes them, as they see it. What do they want? More sex ed, more
abortion clinics, and of course the defunding of all abstinence
programs.
A STRUGGLE IS BREWING over the issue of conscience. The
Bush administration issued a last-minute regulation shielding
health care workers from reprisals if they refuse to participate in
abortions on moral or religious grounds. It would cut off federal
funds for hospitals and clinics that refuse to accommodate such
conscientious objectors. Expect a big push to reverse the rule.
According to Sen. Patty Murray, “It threatens the health and
well-being of women and the rights of patients across the
country.”
I went out to Fairfax,
Virginia, to talk to John Bruchalski, an ob/gyn
doctor who runs the Tepeyac Crisis
Pregnancy Center. It’s a Catholic,
pro-life, nonprofit center where young women come for help. It does
no abortions and sometimes prevails on young women to bring the
child to term, maybe put it up for adoption.
Bruchalski’s practice is a constant
struggle against a culture mired in callousness. “At its heart is
the disrespect for the human person,” he said. He was thinking of
the pregnant young woman who comes to a clinic and “is treated as
an object rather than as a person.” After a cursory inspection,
like a defective toy, she is recommended for an abortion. Then she
is back on the street without comfort or a second glance. Such an
irony that the women’s movement was founded by women who complained
(with some justice) that as young women they had been treated as
objects--sex objects.
As the government takeover of health care increases,
Bruchalski said, so does the pressure for more abortions. The state
can reduce its financial burden by deciding that only a certain
amount will be spent on health care. They can cap costs and ration
care and minimize future welfare. So abortion looks like a
cost-saving device (as in the Soviet Union). But the psychic costs
are high, Bruchalski warned.
For years, the population control movement has validated
abortion. Were blacks really targeted? There’s more on all this in
Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal
Government in Modern America
(Oxford University Press), by Donald T. Critchlow. In a
future article, I hope to write something on the history and
ideology of population control. Meanwhile, someone I know wondered
out loud: How would Jesse Jackson like it if Klan members showed up
at the inauguration with signs reading: “Keep Abortion Legal”
?
