Alveda King spoke out against abortion and Planned Parenthood to a well-attended crowd at St. Theresa Church recently.
She was also there to promote her new book, How Can the Dream Survive if We Murder the Children?.
She opened her talk asking what civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. would have thought of a recent court decision against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
"He would expect people to walk the way of the Lord," she said. "We are not perfect but we serve a perfect God."
Then she shifted to birth control.
"I know girls who have been on birth control since they were teenagers," she said. "Something was wrong with their bodies" when they got off the pill and tried to have children.
"There are girls having heart attacks and strokes from taking this stuff," King said.
Her uncle would have supported natural family planning rather than using artificial means, mainly pills and devices.
King said she tried many methods of birth control but they hurt her or made her feel sick.
A Dream and Abortions
King credits her existence to her grandfather, who told King's mother not to have an abortion because he dreamed of Alveda King.
King said her two abortions changed her.
"After the first abortion, my personality changed," she said. She separated from her husband and they later reunited. Her second abortion changed her again.
She became pregnant in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe. v. Wade legalized abortion. Her grandfather told her to keep the baby, as he had told King's mother. He had seen the child in a dream, she said.
Afterward, she became a Christian and forgave everyone, including Planned Parenthood.
Questions from the Audience
One listener asked why Caesarian Section births are being prescribed to black and hispanic women. King said in general, "Black folks need jobs, not abortions. I'm an African American, a woman. I'm not afraid to say this."
"Don't abort children. You're killing a baby. You're hurting women," she said, adding that there are more abortion clinics in urban and African-American neighborhoods.
Another listener called King the "link to between the civil rights movement and the pro-life movement."
King urged people to stand together. "It's not white people versus black people. It's God's people against the Devil," she said.
King also showed previews for two videos: "Maafa 21," a video about eugenics, and "Blood Money: the Business of Abortion."
St. Theresa's Pastor, the Rev. Brian Gannon, praised the speaker, who belongs to numerous pro-life organizations and has an honorary doctorate.
"We're very, very proud and very, very blessed to have Dr. King here," Gannon said. October is Respect Life Month for the Catholic Church.