WASHINGTON — More than two dozen African-American religious leaders and pro-lifers from across the country gathered here Tuesday to call on lawmakers to investigate the abortion industry and a reveal what they say is the mass murder of unborn black babies in poor minority communities.
Led by founder and president for the Center of Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) Star Parker the group condemned not only the media for failing to pursue what they say is the truth about the abortion industry targeting their communities, but also the Congressional Black Caucus, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other mainstream civil rights groups for failing to stand up to the abortion lobby.
“We want the Congress to open hearings,” Parker said to a chorus of “yeahs” from the cluster of black clergy and pro-lifers standing behind and beside her at the National Press Club.
“We are being targeted,” she continued. “As the black community, we are being targeted.”
Parker and her coalition called for investigations and said they are going to “put on notice” lawmakers who stand in the way of senators and congressmen, like Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who are also calling for investigations.
Tuesday afternoon the group is scheduled to brief members of Congress about their concerns.
“This must stop. And we are here to say, not just today but we are not going to rest, as they didn’t rest during the Civil Rights Movement, until it was finished,” Parker added. “As the abolitionists did not rest, with that crime against humanity during slavery. We won’t rest, not this one, not on our watch.”
According to Parker and the clergy who spoke out, Kermit Gosnell — the Philadelphia abortionist found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder Tuesday in the deaths of three babies born alive in botched abortions — is not an anomaly. They said there are more Gosnells throughout the country and in their neighborhoods.
“Abortion is the number one killer of black Americans,” said Rev. Arnold Culbreath, the Urban Outreach Director of Life Issues Institute, said, adding that the black community is “being targeted by Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.”
According to Culbreath, 79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are “intentionally placed” within walking distance of minority neighborhoods.
“Kermit Gosnell is a racist of the worst kind,” Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, said, “because he preyed on women and young girls of his own race.”
According to Gardner, Gosnell “perpetuated the epidemic of black-on-black crime.”
Day further called on the media outlets to explain why the gave the Jodi Arias trial so much more attention that the horrors perpetrated by Gosnell.
“I can’t help but think if Gosnell’s victims were white children, would we see the same kind of media coverage? America has been trying for decades to bury the race card, but the truth is we are playing with a stacked deck,” she charged. “The mainstream media continues to prove that see black children as having very different value, of less worth than their white counterparts.”
“Since 1973, abortion on demand in black America has taken more lives than homicides, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and HIV/Aides combined and become the number one cause of death in the black community,” Rev. Walter Hoye, president and founder of the Issues4life Foundation in Berkeley, California, said.
He added that while abortion on demand nationally has decreased, the abortion rate in the black community has increased.
Hoye added that while black Americans make up 14 percent of the American population, 30 percent of all abortions are performed on black women. He noted that the abortion industry has been more efficient in killing black Americans than the Ku Klux Klan ever was.
“We’re calling upon America to open your hearts again, open your eyes again, clean out your ears again,” the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. Alveda King said.
“These pastors are serious about making sure the Congress opens hearings,” Parker added of the numerous black clergy surrounding her from across the country.
“We’ve been targeted, we know it, we know this is not an anomaly, and we know there is a great cover-up,” she asserted.
Bishop Darryl Husband of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Virginia stressed that the issue should no longer be a political one.
“Please take this off the political radar. It is a moral issue,” he said. “And it must be stopped now.”
Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church of Beltsville, Md., pledged $1,000 to the cause and revealed that his wife had had an abortion.
“We finally get it. This rising tide I believe is not going to be denied, and we are going to be listened to in these halls of politics by both parties,” he said, acknowledging that more black Americans are Democrats.
He added that the importance of life should be stressed in the pulpit and at home.
Rev. Walter Moss, New Beginnings Foursquare Gospel Church of Canton, Ohio, called on all pastors to “get into the game” in pursuing the importance of life.
Pastor Stephen Broden, Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church of Dallas, Texas, further decried the lack of black leadership of this issue.
“The NAACP, and the Urban League, and the Congressional Black Caucus, are complicit in the Gosnell clinic if they cannot stand on behalf of the community and push back against this culture of death,” he said.
“We need to say that today, that we are aware of the fact that our leadership has failed us on this issue,” Broden added. “And we’re calling them to task today, they must stand or be removed.”
Rev. Caesar LeFlore of the New Community Church in Dolton, Ill., — who had driven with four other clergy to Washington the night prior — spoke of Tonya Reeves, a young woman who died during an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Chicago last year.
LeFlore charged that while people have spoken about “war on women” they are not paying attention to the “war on black women.”
“Where, one might ask, is the suspicious outrage from the Congressional Black Caucus and the black journalists when it comes to the war on black women and the violence against them that abortion is inflicting?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t tolerate it if women going into clinics for breast enhancements and botox were coming out dead. You wouldn’t put up with that for one moment, so why in God’s name is it hard to get the government to ensure that we don’t have ogres like Kermit Gosnell slaughtering our women and desecrating the bodies of our children?”