Black Pastors to Back Health Care Bills, Give Cover to Barack Obama on Abortion

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Sep 24, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Black Pastors to Back Health Care Bills, Give Cover to Barack Obama on Abortion

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 24
, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A group of black pastors from the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly African-American denomination, are endorsing the health care plans in Congress today. They are giving cover to President Barack Obama, who has promised no abortion funding even though all three bills fund abortions.

Led by Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., a Los Angeles minister, the black pastors are offering their complete support for the public option — the government-run insurance plan found in HR 3200 that funds abortions.

According to a Los Angeles Times news report, the pastors were careful to use language saying they agreed with Obama that abortion funds should not be in the health care bills — even though massive abortion subsidies and mandates exist.

"In accord with our commitment to Christian teaching, we wholeheartedly affirm the president’s position that medical costs related to the abortion of fetuses shall not be covered by healthcare plans funded by this initiative," Blake said at a press conference.

The endorsement comes one day after a group of black pro-life leaders took an educational campaign to Capitol Hill to oppose the abortion funding in the health care bills.

Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church, Pastor Arnold Culbreath of Protecting Black Life, Pastor Stephen Broden of Fairpark Bible Fellowship and Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union joined other pro-life blacks for the education campaign.

Last week, King said there is nothing racist about opposing the health care plans pending in Congress because they force taxpayers to finance abortions.

“What really is racist is singling out minorities, who now receive about two-thirds of the abortions in this country, for discriminatory treatment," King explained.

"Those of us who care about the civil rights of all Americans, born and unborn, oppose Obamacare because we oppose the expansion of the most racist industry in America – the abortion industry," she said.

Instead of backing the bills, Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee says the pastors should support pro-life efforts for amendments to scrap the abortion funding.

"From what the pastors are saying, it sounds like what they want to do is what we want to do — which is to ensure that these new plans not cover elective abortions," Johnson told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, says the black pastors who endorsed the bill are betraying how abortion hurts their community.

"The issue of abortion is of utmost importance in the African-American community for it is this community that has been targeted by Planned Parenthood and their ilk," he told LifeNews.com. "Since Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973 over 13 million African-Americans children have been killed."

"The targeting of pro-abortion forces is highlighted when you consider that African-Americans make up only 13.5 percent of the population, yet Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute reports that of the approximately 1.21 million abortions that are performed annually in the United States, 37 percent are performed on African-American women and their unborn children," he added.

"Preliminary data currently being compiled on all abortion facilities in the U.S. shows that over 20 states have abortion facilities in areas where the African-American population is 50 percent or higher," Perkins continued.

In fact in 10 states and in Washington, D.C. have abortion centers located exclusively in minority areas.

"If the current versions of the President’s health care overhaul pass those numbers are sure to increase," Perkins concluded.

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