What Would Martin Luther King Jr Say About Abortion? He Would “Defend Life”

National   |   Maria Vitale Gallagher   |   Jul 23, 2014   |   9:28AM   |   Washington, DC

Pondering what the legendary civil rights figure might communicate in 140 characters or fewer on the social networking site Twitter is among the highlights in his niece Alveda King’s new book, King Rules.

Alveda King offers sample tweets taken from the speeches and writings of the heroic champion of non-violence and of harmony between the races.

martinlutherkingjr2“We are made to live together,” is among the quotes she envisions her uncle sending out into cyberspace. In Alveda’s view, the persons meant to live together would include unborn Americans.

In King Rules, Alveda King provides persuasive arguments for her contention that the ‘60s icon would have encouraged his followers to “defend life,” had he lived to see the 21st century. She maintains that her uncle never advocated for abortion. “I know this because I grew up with him and, more importantly, I grew up in the same values system that nurtured him and informs every word in this book,” Alveda King writes.

She further points out that in his 1958 book, Stride Toward Freedom, he stated, “The Negro cannot win…if he is willing to sell the future of his children for his personal and immediate comfort and safety.” Certainly, abortion eliminates a child’s future—and her present.

Furthermore, in his stirring “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he lamented “such ancient evils as infanticide.” It would have been difficult for even this modern prophet to have foreseen the brutality rendered by Roe v. Wade—a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which has led to the deaths of more than 56 million babies and the devastation of countless numbers of women.

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While Planned Parenthood, which became the nation’s largest abortion provider, did single out her uncle for an award, Alveda King emphatically states, “I’m convinced Uncle M.L. never believed in the platform of Planned Parenthood.” She notes that he did not personally receive the award, but that his wife Coretta accepted it on his behalf.  At the time, Coretta King delivered a speech that was credited to her husband, but his niece maintains that it sounded “nothing like him, including several statements that in my (Alveda’s) opinion contradict foundations of his own philosophy.”

Alveda King makes a strong argument that the abortion industry has no right to claim the King legacy. As with any other public relations ploy, invoking King’s name is just one more way abortionists try to legitimize a profession that will never truly be legitimate. The taking of innocent human life is a profound injustice, both to mother and child. Defending life—especially the lives of the most vulnerable—is the civil rights movement of our time.

And it is in being a champion of that cause that Alveda King follows in the footsteps of the family members who came before her, including her uncle, Martin Luther King, Jr.

LifeNews.com Note: Maria Vitale is an opinion columnist for LifeNews.com. She is the Legislative Director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and Vitale has written and reported for various broadcast and print media outlets, including National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and AP Radio.