Posted on 04/10/2007 11:19:03 AM PDT by Antoninus
Does the pro-life movement have a problem reaching out to African-Americans?
Twenty-five years ago, when 17,000 aborted babies were found in a dumpster outside a pathology lab in Los Angeles, some 12,000-15,000 were observed to be black. Even today, African Americans make up 13% of the population but account for 37% of all abortions in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Planned Parenthood has spent years building ties with black churches and providing subsidized healthcare, such as pap smears and AIDS tests, to poor urban communities. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has spent a decade cultivating black preachers to sell both teens and parents on distinctively non-Biblical views of sexuality and birth control.
In contrast, Peggy Hartshorn, president of Heartbeat International, coordinates nearly 900 pro-life centers across the nation -- almost all in mostly white suburbs. Heartbeat International recently launched an initiative to stake out a presence in non-white West Coast neighborhoods. “It's only recently that we’ve realized we need to be there,” Hartshorn said.
But, for the most part, the intensifying pro-life outreach to African Americans is not a coordinated strategy but a series of projects by independent ministries. The black activist group LEARN tries to rally political outrage by touring colleges with the Genocide Awareness Project -- giant murals that juxtapose photos of aborted fetuses with images of slaughter in Rwanda.
Los Angeles TV-radio talk show personality Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson blends an anti-abortion theme into his work with African American conservative projects. As a board member of the California Christian Coalition, Peterson is one of a small number of black conservatives trying to use the abortion issue to draw African Americans to the Republican Party.
That tactic made a splash in last fall’s elections, when a political action committee run by black radio talk show host Herman Cain poured $1 million into edgy ads on urban radio. One spot contended that "Democratic support for abortion laws is decimating our people.” It concluded: “Democrats say they want our vote. Why don’t they want our lives?”
But many black community leaders are turned off by the use of the abortion issue to attack the Democratic Party and garner Black support for Republicans.
“Crisis pregnancy centers would probably be quite popular as institutions in the black community,” said political scientist Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an African-American who graduated from Stanford Law School. “But that means almost nothing for the Republican notion of pulling blacks in as morality voters.”
Lillie Epps, a vice president of Care Net, which runs more than 1,000 crisis pregnancy centers, most of them suburban and white, agrees. “When you go to African-American communities -- even myself, an African-American woman -- you'll find they don’t trust pro-life people. They look at us as a group who cares very little about what’s going on in the inner city, AIDS, poverty and all the other issues.”
Epps said she hopes to set up a center soon in an African-American neighborhood in Los Angeles. “But it’s been very tough,” Epps said. “When they hear ‘pro-life,’ the first thing they think is ‘white Republican.’”
Welcome to FR!
Bump
“But something ain’t right.” - What isn’t right is a very simple thing - welfare state per se. Eradicate it root, trunk and branches - and then the extended family will again become a primary social safety net, with all that it implies. As Charles Murray wrote long ago, it takes some [not much, but still some] IQ to figure out that going on the dole is a dead end. OK. Remove the temptation of the dole.
We need to spend closer to $10 million on this next time.
Blacks are responsible for their own behavior.
Thank You. Its great to be here
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