Martin Luther King Jr’s Niece: Congressman Correct That Abortion Hurts Blacks
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 2, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is coming to the defense of a pro-life congressman who said last week that abortion has hurt the black community worse than slavery. She follows another pro-life African-American leader who says Rep. Trent Franks got it right.
Franks, who has sponsored legislation responding to the high rate of abortions in the African-American community, released a video last week.
"Far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery. And I think, What does it take to get us to wake up?" he says in it.
Franks has come under attack from abortion advocates and the mainstream media, but Dr. Alveda King, whose uncle was the famed civil rights leader, told LifeNews.com today that Franks has a good point.
"Congressman Franks’ comment that ‘far more of the African American community is being devastated’ by abortion ‘than were being devastated by the policies of slavery’ makes a quantitative distinction," she said. "It’s not a judgment as to which of the two brutal, inhumane practices is worse, but rather which has impacted more people."
King says raw data clearly shows abortion has adversely affected more black Americans.
"Examining the statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, one can estimate that 14 million African Americans were killed by abortion between 1973 and 2005," she said.
"That’s ‘far more’ than the number of blacks who suffered under the horrors of slavery from our country’s founding until emancipation. The last Census to count slaves in 1860 numbered them at 4 million. Even assuming short life spans, it’s hard to see how the total number of slaves approaches the number of blacks killed by abortion," the black pro-life leader continued.
"From what I’ve read, the people who attempt to criticize Congressman Franks for his words are people who think unborn black babies don’t have the right to exist," added Dr. King. "That is the slave owner’s mindset, namely that some people are less than human."
"Congressman Franks’ record of caring and concern for Americans of every color and of every age is second to none," concluded Dr. King. "I only wish we had more leaders like him."
Statistics from the federal government and the mainstream media appear to back up Franks’ point that abortions target black women.
According to figures from the Centers for Disease Control, while black women represent 12.5% of American females they have 38.2% of all abortions, according to the authors.
The rate is so high that ABC News recently focused on it during a news feature.
The news outlet interviewed Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life, a black woman who is upset at how abortion adversely affects her community.
"My people are dying. My people are dying, and nobody cares that my people are dying. And I want people to be, to look at this. Is there any truth to what we are saying?" she said.
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