Martin Luther King, Jr's Niece Reflects on Abortion at Birmingham Event

Life News ^ | 8/23/07 | Steven Ertelt

[Riverman94610]

Thats frightening,really.In New Orleans,I was working with the most impovershed group of blacks in the city and back then they were almost unanimously oposed to abortion.
So what hs happened since then?Did the moral barometer completely drop to the bottom?When I left the city in 1977,murders were around 100 per year.Ten years later,the figure was between 300-400 per year.
Maybe its all symptomatic of the same disease,hatred of life.Abortion is murder and I guess when you can do it at a Planned Parenthodd clinic,you feel you can also do it on a housing project courtyard.

[Tribune7]

[Mrs. Don-o]

I wish I understood this heart-sickening phenomenon of the sudden, calamitous plunge in the value of life and love and all things human.

I think of Quebec, which in about 10 years (I say this from memory: maybe 1965 - 1975?) went from having the most child-rich culture in the Western Hemisphere to the polar opposite, absolutely killing off their kids all the while bitching about the dwindling of French language and culture and influence in the polity of Canada. Duh.

Spain. Once Christ's Spain. Now, where did I just read it, the highest abortion rate in Europe? Italy. The city of Bologna: sunny, prosperous, lots of flowers, lots of food, wonderful food: the lowest non-plague, non-wartime birthrate in the history of the human race. For every child under the age of 5 in Bologna there are 25 people over the age of 50.

Poland. Poland. Total fertility rate 1.26. What the hell is happening? Matka Boska Częstochowska!

Excuse my ranting. I guess I'm in a mood.

[Riverman94610]

I share your bewilderment.Its way beyond my simple mind.
May God have mercy on us as a human species.

[Romulus]

born out of wedlock, into conditions and a culture

So what?

This is a civil rights thread -- specifically, the right to life. It isn't a sociology thread.

[r9etb]

This is a civil rights thread -- specifically, the right to life. It isn't a sociology thread.

Well, golly. I did preface my comment with "As an aside."

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I find it's often helpful to try to gain a bigger-picture view of problems, as a means of understanding things like abortion.

For example, it not like there's no "sociological" (i.e., cultural) aspect to the high abortion rate among black women ... what I wonder is, are the two -- abortions and illegitimacy -- culturally connected in some way?

Just to ask the question is enough to suggest that there's a common thread between the two phenomena.

But perhaps your view from the high heights of your saddle prevented you from seeing the possible tie-in.

[utahagen]

A social worker I know tells me that “black girls don’t get abortions”, but I’ve done some research that explains why this may merely seem to be the case. Statistically, unmarried black women have more pregnancies (per woman) than unmarried white woman do (per woman). In addition, speaking very generally, black people disapprove of abortion more than white people do. So, an unmarried black woman is less likely to abort than an unmarried white woman...HOWEVER, because an unmarried black women may have several more pregnancies than a white woman, she may choose abortion once for, say, every three babies she carries to term; whereas an unmarried white woman may have just one out of wedlock pregnancy, which she aborts.

[HIDEK6]

It's not at all meant as a knock on this story, nor on her. I just think it would be interesting to know if this lady is also trying to address that problem as well.

That's like criticizing AA because they don't do anything about smoking.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, like any thread, it's a conversation and therefore it's what you make of it.

I personally think the out-of-wedlock question is relevant and important, as probably Ms. King would agree, because what we're seeing is a dramatic devaluation of the sacredness of life and of the sources of life. If we devalue life, we permit the killing of babies. If we devalue the sources of life, we cheapen and trivialize sex and take it out of the honorable setting of marriage.

This also devalues the babies who are born under such insecure and deprived conditions, born to parents who didn't even value the baby, or each other, enough to get married.

[r9etb]

Sometimes wondering is just wondering ... and that’s really all I was doing. The thought popped into my head. And on further reflection (see above), I think they’re probably related issues.

[r9etb]

I don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but I seem to recall that black women who have abortions tend to be better educated than average; and the single mothers less so.

I wonder if the same cultural factors with respect to sexuality, family, marriage, etc., are at play in both groups -- and that it's just the end result that differs.

[Mrs. Don-o]

It could be that the woman who aborts tends more to be a woman who has firm plans in terms of educational advancement, job advancement, and she's afraid having a baby will knock her off of her planned career trajectory. Whereas the woman who has out-of-wedlock babies has no further definite or pressing ambitions.

Just a generalization, and like all generalizations, it explains trends but doesn't predict or explain individual cases.

[Riverman94610]

I think your explanation seems the most logical one so far.

[Corin Stormhands]

Is that picture genuine? If so, can you tell me where you found it?

[Tribune7]

The website is here.

I can't confirm with certainty that the pix is genuine but Wiki confirms she spoke to the KKK in Silver Lake, N.J.

[Tribune7]

Something else that may be of interest was her friendship with Lothrop Stoddard , the author of The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy, whom she mentions favorably in her autobiography.

[Corin Stormhands]

Thanks

[MountainFlower]

" prey upon women who think they have no hope"
And that is PP, who puports they 'care' about womens health!

Dr Alveda King is a jewel in Christ's crown. A treasure!! May God bless her and her work.