Atlanta, GA – Dr. Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life and niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., commented today on the Jena Six case in Louisiana, where six African American high school students involved in a fight with white students have been charged with crimes that could send them to prison for decades.  Critics of the prosecutions, citing racial segregation at the school and discriminatory prosecution of only the black students involved in the fight, are asking the Justice Department to investigate.

"The call to investigate the Jena Six prosecutions is legitimate,” said Dr. King.  “There’s clear evidence in the case that officials need to examine for discriminatory practices, from the nooses strung from a tree that helped provoke the fight to the vast difference in the severity of treatment given to white and black participants.”

“There’s other evidence of racism in our nation, though, that also troubles me to the core and that also demands investigation,” added Dr. King.  “The abortion industry kills black babies at an alarmingly high and disproportionate rate, it situates its clinics primarily in minority neighborhoods, and it has eliminated one-quarter of the African American population.  Abortionists don’t wear hoods, but one has to wonder how the results of the abortion industry’s practices would be much different if they did.  Black babies are being denied their fundamental right to live and it’s time to find out why the people who profit from abortion in this country seem to be targeting African Americans.”

Priests for Life is the nation's largest Catholic pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.