Black Pro-Life Advocates Will Address Abortion Issues in January Conference

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 30, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Black Pro-Life Advocates Will Address Abortion Issues in January Conference Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 30,
2007

Berkeley, CA (LifeNews.com) — Some of the top leaders in the African-American pro-life community will gather next month for a leadership conference in California. They plan to discuss future efforts to address issues relating to lowering the enormously high black abortion rate and getting more blacks involved in stopping abortion.

Sponsored by the Issues4Life Foundation, Dr. Alveda King and Dr. Clenard Childress will be the keynote speakers at the Berkeley, California event.

The Progressive Missionary Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., twice spoke to and rallied the African-American leadership during the civil rights movement, is the site of the January 18 "Leadership for Life" conference.

During the civil rights era, Alveda’s family home was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

In the heat of the struggle, "Daddy’s house was bombed, then in Louisville, Kentucky his church office was bombed. I was also jailed during the open housing movement," Dr. King recalls.

Alveda has continued her long-term work as a civil rights activist, speaking out on issues that face society today — including abortion.

"Perhaps the most compelling issue of all is the life of the unborn," Alveda told LifeNews.com in a statement Monday.

Despite the pro-life heritage in African-American communities across the nation, black women account for 13 percent of the American population but 37 percent of all abortions.

The rates appear to correspond with the expansion of Planned Parenthood abortion centers into racial minority communities.

Lorey Kelley, Care Net’s Director of Urban Center Development, previously told Lifenews.com that the African-American community is a key to significantly reducing abortions.

"Currently, 94% of all abortion providers are located in metropolitan areas, with 70% of these in urban communities," Kelley explained.

"As a result, African American and Hispanic women account for a disproportionate number of the more than 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States each year. There’s something wrong with this picture," Kelley added.

Related web sites:
"Leadership for Life" conference – https://www.progressive4life.org
Care Net – https://www.care-net.org