Statements by Black Americans on Abortion

Announcing: Kwanzaa For Life 2003 - NBCAL

The National Black Catholic Apostolate for Life invites everyone to pray for the end of abortion and the sacredness of life during Kwanzaa. We have called it Kwanzaa for Life 2003.

STATEMENTS BY BLACK AMERICANS ON ABORTION

"Cowardice asks the question, 'is it safe?'; expediency asks the question 'is it politic?'; vanity asks the question 'is it popular?', but conscience asks the question "is it right?' and there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but because - conscience tells one it is right."

--Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jesus said to his disciples "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appoint you to go and bear fruit that will remain..." (John 15:16) I encourage each of you as Black Catholics to go forth and bear much fruit by planting the "Culture of Life" in our African American community.

--Bishop J. Terry Steib, SVD, DD, Bishop of Memphis, National Black Catholic Apostolate for Life, Episcopal Advisor

"One person or one group cannot direct this campaign against abortion and death alone, but with the God of life on our side, one person, and one group can make a difference between life and death. As Black Americans let us unite with all God’s people for life."

-- Fr. Jim Goode, OFM, PH.D, President, National Black Catholic Apostolate for Life

"Prejudice and poverty have kept the Black family in a powerless state. Now the womb of the Black woman is seen as the latest battleground for oppression. This deliberate killing of Black babies in abortion is genocide, the most overt form of all. As a Black, Protestant social worker of forty years experience in poor communities, I demand an immediate halt to this genocide."

--Erma Clardy Craven
Author, "Abortion, Poverty and Black Genocide"

I fully support the right to life of every human being, from conception until natural death. In addition, I unequivocally endorse a total human life amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that would promote the value and dignity of every human life."

--Dick Gregory

"No one can predict what physical effect abortion will have on a given girl or woman. Here one risks compounding both physical and psychological problems. When nature enables the body to conceive, it prepares it to deliver. Subjecting it to an unnecessary social operation is unlikely to assure physical or mental health."

--Mildred Jefferson, M.D.
President, Right to Life Crusade

"The United States government through its Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion has established a policy to outright murder unborn babies. Black women and girls are being barraged with propaganda by doctors, social workers, women liberationists and others to murder babies in their womb."

--Minister George
4X Temple No. 46, Nation of Islam

"Yesterday they snatched the babies from our arms and sold them into slavery, today they cut them out of our womb and throw them in the garbage. Abortion, Black genocide, provided free of charge by a racist society."

--Dolores Bernadette Grier
President, Black Catholics Against Abortion