Thursday, February 8, 2007

Abortion Continues to Diminish African-Americans

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A leading pro-life advocate in the black community says abortion diminishes the worth and value of African-Americans in the same way slavery and a lack of civil rights did before. Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, hopes Americans will learn more about this travesty during Black History Month.

"Throughout the month of February, we take the time ... one month out of the year to remember the tragedies and celebrate the triumphs of African Americans in history," Gardner explained. "We celebrate the fact that we are a strong race that survived the many horrors and inhumane treatment when we were an enslaved people -- presumed by many to be less than human," she said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com.

Gardner, a former Miss Delaware and the first black woman to be named a semifinalist in the Miss America pageant, said that black Americans made great strides in the 1960s and afterwards in achieving civil rights and establishing their ability to achieve the American dream.

Since that time, African-American people have been able to rise to the highest ranks in the political and business worlds and achieve tremendous success. But Gardner worries that abortion is taking a heavy toll on her community. "In our quest for higher education, bigger houses, better jobs and flashier cars are we closing our eyes to the fact that more than a thousand of our children die each day by the horrible practice of abortion?" she asked.

"These children are denied their most basic human right -- which is the right to life; a right which our ancestors so proudly worked for, marched for and many of them died for," Gardner added.

Gardner said that 15 million of the 44 million unborn children killed via abortion since 1973 were black. "Abortion has become the number one killer of black people in this country -- killing more African Americans that accidents, heart disease, stroke, crimes, HIV-AIDS and all other deaths combined," she explained.

Gardner says she's bothered that African-American leaders recognize racism in many places but fail to see how abortion has targeted the black community and how a disproportionate number of the abortions done in the United States are on black women and children.

More than 37 percent of all abortions involve black Americans, she says. Gardner concludes, "We are the underground railroad of our time and it's up to us to make abortion a thing of our historical past. If we stand united against this horrific practice ... we shall overcome this, too." LifeNew

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