Jivin J’s Life Links 11-1-08
by JivinJ
Anne Henderstott has a piece in Public Discourse about how dangerous it is to be a black child in the womb:
Currently, white women’s rates of abortion have declined to 10.5 abortions per 1,000 women while black women’s rates are an alarming 50 abortions per 1,000 black women. Put in terms of actual pregnancies, the figures are shocking: Nearly half of all African American pregnancies end in abortion…..
The black community has already been changed by abortion. At a time when 50% of their unborn children are aborted, many within the black community are beginning to recognize that their community has been devastated by abortion. Someday it is possible that their pro-choice political representatives will recognize this too.
CACG missed an opportunity with their abortion study. They commissioned a methodologically rigorous analysis of a complicated issue – the incidence of abortion at the state level.
However, their primary interest seemed to have been making the case that welfare spending was the best way to reduce abortion. They did not engage previous research on pro-life legislation. And tellingly, they failed to publicize their own findings which indicated that certain types of pro-life laws were effective. The pro-life community might have been more receptive to them had they been willing to acknowledge their own finding that public-funding restrictions reduce abortion rates.
Instead, many pro-lifers simply wrote them off as group whose objective was to provide political and religious cover for pro-abortion supporters of Barack Obama.
Those fighting for the abolition of slavery pressed on against obstacles and set backs worse than these because, after all, these were human lives they were defending. What if they had listened to those who, after Dred Scott and the Missouri Compromise, said that the battle was “permanently” lost?
What if they had been intimidated by critics accusing them of “single-issue” voting?
If every single fetus is an unborn child made in the image of God, there is no moral justification for settling for a vague hope of some reduction in the number of fetal homicides. If the abortion fight is “permanently lost,” it will be lost first among those who claim to be defenders of life – those who tell us that the argument is merely changing.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“If every single fetus is an unborn child made in the image of God, there is no moral justification for settling for a vague hope of some reduction in the number of fetal homicides.”
But we say God is LOVE. Why are they destroying the innocent?
The struggle to end slavery went on for decades. The movement fought on through setbacks, stalements, indifference, and frustration.
What if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had thrown his hands up in despair the first time he endured frustration and setback? Does anyone think the Civil Rights movement was a cakewalk? Dr.King’s home was firebombed, people were beaten and killed. This was a very divisive and emotionally charged issue. Changing deeply entrenched racial and social attitudes in never greeted warmly. Civil and voting rights legislation only passed because President Johnson could rally the support of House and Senate Republicans. Democrats were filibustering. How much longer would black Americans have sat at the back of the bus if Dr. King had walked away at the first setback, or had Republicans not supported President Johnson?
It’s dangerous to be a black child period. Generations of poverty, stigmas of segrigation, and in places a malaise brought on by feeling forgotten. As a white person i can choose not to live in a historically black neighborhood if I want, but they have little choice about where they live. The underclass are priced out of stable middle-class neighborhoods, and middle class blacks are often greeted by suspicion when they do move to more established neighborhoods. The intersection of race and class in America is a very neglected place that can leave those who live there wondering where they fit in.
Want to know what its like? Read “Black Like Me” by John Howard Griffin. I read it in a high school history class and it blew my mind.
The struggle to end slavery went on for decades.
True, Mary, and it also took a while to get women the rights they now have.