The political leaders where Jim Crow dominated were often supported by the Ku Klux Klan, if not members themselves. The post-WW2 Klan was relatively small in number but big on activism, i.e. terrorism and violence, and these were the truest of racists. Perhaps next in line of true racists were the low-functioning whites who were easily manipulated and could be counted upon to show up for anti-integration/civil rights rallies; emotionally labile people who found psychological succor in the belief they were at least better than black people. Based upon my experience and knowledge, the majority of whites in Jim Crow controlled areas either 1) didn’t particularly dislike black people but were so inculcated by the prevailing racism they couldn’t avoid a sense of inherent superiority or 2) had nothing whatsoever against blacks but were so cowed by the cultural environment that they kept their beliefs to themselves: one of the most serious accusations that could be made, that could ruin both livelihood and social standing, was being a “n***ger lover.” They didn’t choose to do the wrong thing, but couldn’t bring themselves to do the right thing. The easiest course was to keep their heads down, mouths shut, and try not to think about it.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

As a young adult I was fully supportive of abortion; I never thought much about it but viewed pro-lifers as flakes. When I was in college training to be a Physician Assistant (PA) the pro-abortion narrative was “it” was just a “blob of tissue,” and how could anyone be against sucking a blob out of a uterus? One of my clinical rotations was ob/gyn at a facility that did abortions. I was surprised that many of the nurses declined to be involved, and I was happy to be the one who assisted the abortionist, which largely involved turning on the suction machine. Though educationally I knew better, I was kind of surprised to see first hand what passed through the clear tubing on its way to the medical waste was not an amorphous “blob” but little arms and legs. I had my first pangs of discomfort with abortion.

Later I did a clinical rotation with Planned Parenthood (PP), the largest provider of abortions. The facility I was at didn’t actually do them if I recall, but served as a referral center for abortion. One day I saw a young lady who believed she was pregnant, and explained she had gone to an abortion mill with the innocuous sounding name of “Pre-Term,” where she was told she HAD to have an abortion. She began to cry and asked, “Why do I have to get an abortion, I want to have a baby?” Though she didn’t realize PP was all in for abortion and it ended up she wasn’t pregnant, this encounter really made me question the euphemistic slogan, “pro-choice:” it might be someone’s choice, but not necessarily the woman’s.

The third act in this trilogy that converted to me to Pro-Life also occurred at PP when a hugely pregnant black lady- maybe seven months along- came seeking an abortion (PP performs a disproportionate number of abortions on black women; you can almost see the Jim Crow politicians of 50-60 years ago giving a big thumbs up). The stylish upper middle-class PP director expressed her outrage that, at that time at least, the government wouldn’t pay for such an abortion, but looked at me and quietly said something like, “We have a special fund for such cases.” The issue wasn’t that they were going to commit a horrific and inhumane act destroying a baby who would have been clearly viable if delivered at that moment, but that they had to do an accounting trick.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

There are millions upon millions of Pro-Life people, female and male, of all ages, races, and socioeconomic levels. They might offer varying reasons for why they are Pro-Life, ranging from the theological/religious to secular humanistic to the generic abortion is simply wrong. One reason that is never stated, because it doesn’t exist, is that somehow these millions of people want to keep women barefoot and in the kitchen, the underlying narrative of the abortion political-cultural-industrial complex.

The thing is, it’s not difficult to understand why too many women choose abortion, though there are often extrinsic forces and people who choose it for them: what could be a better out for some Frat Boy who hooks up for a one-nighter and leaves her pregnant? The other part of this equation is the girl left pregnant, who maybe had too much to drink and never considered the possible consequence of her encounter with Frat Boy. Her plans and ambitions, which were so well chartered, seem to be in jeopardy, but there is an easy out at the tip of a suction catheter or by taking a few pills. Like the average white person living in a Jim Crow-based society where all the powers are saying, “Blacks are inferior beings and we need to keep them down,” the ubiquitous cultural pressure says, “What’s the big deal, just get an abortion, it’s easy and all your worries will be sucked away.” Left as a standalone argument, it’s very persuasive. Unfortunately, the Pro-Life establishment too often fails to make a persuasive argument, and even if they do it’s not going to be heard outside of Pro-Life circles; the traditional media will see to that. It’s terribly frustrating to watch an ostensibly Pro-Life politician backtrack under the media spotlight, or freeze like a deer caught in headlights.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The forerunner of Jim Crow was slavery that had existed for centuries and only ended with lots of bloodshed. Nevertheless, the racist power base was able to dust itself off and thrive for another century, oppressing black people and keeping them down under the guise of “State’s rights” and with creative legalistic maneuvering. What finally ended Jim Crow, in addition to clearly stated civil rights laws backed up by actual enforcement, was that the racist politicos revealed their vileness for all to see, and the millions who had gone along were finally able to say, “They don’t speak for me, of course black people should be treated with equality and dignity.” That was indeed a huge and welcome cultural shift.

In very recent memory pretty much all people, Pro-Life or Pro-Abortion, agreed that abortion wasn’t a good thing, rather it was an unfortunate practice that, to the pro-abortion side, sometimes proved necessary. Even the ever lecherous Bill Clinton found it politically necessary to state it should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Underlying this was an understanding that something of significance was lost in an abortion. I recall a common pro-abortion slogan from perhaps 20 years ago that demanded “Every Child A Wanted Child;” the implication being that “wantedness” was required for permission to live. The problem from the abortion standpoint was the suggestion an actual child was involved, even if it was okay to terminate the life for having the gall to be unwanted.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Throughout history there has been plenty of wanton slaughter, but the smart genocidists knew that dehumanizing their targets as inferior or subhuman made it more palatable to oppress or terminate them. In Jim Crow, there was the paradigm of whites being superior and blacks inferior, which allowed the concept of “racial purity” to be not just a belief system, but law. As long as blacks largely kept segregated and out of sight the system could be sustained. Eventually, however, it proved difficult for a white person to know blacks as neighbors, employees, co-workers, friends, etc and maintain the superior/inferior narrative, and the embedded racism fell apart (yes, at this time we are inundated with everything is racist but it’s has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with a yearning for power, money, and status by the privileged elite, or those that want to be).

Unlike people who have been born and can be seen, touched, and interacted with, the abortion industry had a great advantage. Blacks in Jim Crow were visible (though in many ways unseen and ignored) but, by nature, children not yet born are not seen. Hence, it was easy for the “blob, not a baby” narrative to be propagated. But advances in imaging technology made it less plausible: no longer were vague shadows, interpretable only by experts, seen on low-tech prenatal sonograms, but photo quality images emerged, the kind you could keep in your wallet. The abortion industry deftly responded by changing the entire discussion.

Powers pushing a narrative understand that language can be manipulated to influence those who are gullible and susceptible; It’s one reason Jim Crow had such a long run. Abortion could no longer be a profound decision because that would suggest there was something to be considered; indeed the word abortion was largely euphemized. The feel good word “choice” was continued from the “safe, legal, and rare” era, but otherwise the argument for abortion became wrapped in “women’s health care,” “reproductive health,” “protecting girls and women,” and “women’s and reproductive rights.” Any hint of humanity of the victim of abortion was to be squashed.

When codified in law, this has allowed abortions in a number of states up to the moment of birth. The abortion industry will deny this because the optics are horrific, but by using the common practice of not defining words there is lots of room for cruelty. For example, the NY abortion law allows abortion up to full term for several reasons, including to “protect the patient’s health,” but the word “health” is left vague. Precedent exists, however, for example left over from a Blackmun era Supreme Court decision called Doe vs Bolton: “Medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.” In other words, any reason whatsoever can be used to legally terminate a pregnancy at any stage, regardless of the viability of the baby, even if five minutes later the baby would be on the other side, breathing, crying, seeking a nipple for nourishment.

It’s a very dark cloud on our society when pro-abortionists don’t merely disagree with the other side and engage in civil debate, but revile them with all their being. There is nothing new here: In the Jim Crow era whites who stood for equality and dignity for black people were marginalized, often insulted and threatened, and sometimes attacked. There are people who willfully abuse dogs, and many who try to prevent such cruelty: should people hate those who rescue abused dogs? Yet the pro-abortion powers do their best to instill hatred and contempt for Pro-Lifers without ever asking why they are in fact pro-life, because they are terrified of the answer. The best they can come up with is that the millions of pro-lifers are somehow “anti-women.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________

In 2002-2003 I was a volunteer medical director at a remote clinic in Kenya. This was at the height of the African AIDS epidemic and rarely did a day pass without misery and death. By the nature of our work there were lots of bio-hazardous materials generated: pus from AIDS related abscesses, infectious feces, vomit, and associated items like bloody bandages and used scalpel blades and needles. We had a very deep pit in which to discard all this.

One night a heavily pregnant woman appeared in the midst of a miscarriage and malaria. She delivered a deceased little girl, perfectly formed and weighing perhaps a pound. By all pro-abortion criteria this baby was perfectly abortable, and I could imagine high-fiving and even giddy excitement: another victory for women’s rights. Working with me was an American nurse volunteer who also happened to be pro-life, and we discussed what we should do with the little girl’s body. Were we civilized and enlightened progressives we would have done what they do at US abortion facilities, thrown her in the pit with the pus, feces, and scalpel blades, and not given it a second thought, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do that. We ended up putting the little girl’s body in our refrigerator then burying her when morning came. I’ve often thought since that experience every candidate for political office that might involve abortion policy be asked: pit of pus, blood, and feces, or burial? I imagine there would be lots of dancing around, changing the subject, and accusations that the question was somehow unfair, because the overriding goal of the abortion industry is to never, ever, allow any suggestion of humanity for the victim of abortion.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

The pro-abortion activists often talk possessively: having a baby might interfere with My career, finishing My college degree, My material comfort, My financial well-being, My convenience. These are the concerns of many, if not most, people in a society wealthy enough to be concerned about college, career, and convenience. The only issue really dividing pro-life from pro-abortion are the My Body/My Choice! demands of the latter, with the former unable to deny philosophically, scientifically, and humanistically that the other main player in an abortion- the baby- is, in fact, a separate being.

When confronted with the idea the child is an entity apart from the mother, the fall back position for the pro-abortionists is, “What about in cases of rape or incest!” Not unreasonable concerns, per se, but the idea of actually limiting abortion to women pregnant from rape or incest would be totally unacceptable to them; it’s a complete misdirection. The hard reality is that most girls/women become pregnant due to decisions they made, or at least were sweet talked into making, that resulted in conception of a baby. The irony being we are inundated with contraceptive options to the point an “unwanted” pregnancies should almost never occur, but too often do. Perhaps this is due to a deep cultural shift of 60 years ago- the “sexual revolution”- that essentially codified the nihilistic life philosophy of "your personal pleasure and convenience are the most important goals" and “If it feels good, do it!” Ultimately, abortion is the safety net for hedonism, a path we, as a society, chose that separated responsibility from behavior. Also ultimately, divesting responsibility from actions diminishes everyone, and figuratively and literally leaves lots of bodies in its wake, ranging from unborn children physically ripped apart to dead fentanyl addicts found on the streets in politically progressive cities.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

I’m not a Christian or otherwise religious person, but it’s appropriate to quote Jesus in referring to those crucifying him: Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The vast majority of whites who passively condoned Jim Crow were taught from their earliest years that whites were superior to blacks, and to believe otherwise required serious contemplation outside their cultural comfort zone. Modern revisionist history tells us revile them, to dismiss any critical or contextual thinking, and never forgive. Pro-lifers have the responsibility to understand that most supporters of abortion, including and especially women who undergo abortions, are not evil or even bad people, rather they have been duped into believing by the abortion power brokers- those who wield it as a cultural sword to amass huge amounts of wealth and power- that abortion is not only not a bad thing, but a virtue, a right. Most supporters of abortion are, in fact, pawns being selfishly exploited by people who are masters at using deceptive language and narratives in order to exploit them. As with the KKK leaders of yesteryear, those at the top-tier of the abortion industry can reasonably be described as evil because they do know what they are doing.

In 2015 a pro-life group called the Center for Medical Progress did one of those undercover video stings in which they were able to record Planned Parenthood abortion providers and executives discussing how they harvested and sold pieces of aborted babies, and made pretty good money doing so. Most assuredly PP did not react with shame at their barbarity, but were outraged: how dare they trick us into revealing what we do! Legal action, taking place in California, largely succeeded in having the videos suppressed and the citizen investigator charged with crimes. I was able to watch the movie Schindler’s List only once because the reality of what it portrayed was so sickening. Similarly, the crimes against humanity, in its most innocent form, depicted in these PP videos are very difficult to watch. Here is a link to one https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/08/08/pull-off-a-leg-or-two-the-undercover-planned-parenthood-videos-kamala-tried-to-bury-n3792858

Throughout America there are places, often called crisis pregnancy centers, that seek to educate pregnant women about what is developing inside them and suggest abortion is not the only solution. Their services are almost always free, sometimes include ultrasounds, and often will support the women well after they give birth both emotionally and materially, providing all the things they need to care for their babies. Needless to say, these places are anathema to the pro-abortion industry; some politically progressive states actually try to criminalize them. There is obviously a great irony in this: providing pregnant women with knowledge and means to help them make a choice between abortion and allowing the baby to live is vehemently opposed to those who endlessly proselytize about being “pro-choice,” because for them the only allowable choice is to terminate the pregnancy.

Most people who supported Jim Crow did so tacitly and really never gave it much thought: they accepted what they were told about black people because to do otherwise was personally and culturally uncomfortable. Similarly, I truly believe that most people who ostensibly support abortion prefer the most socially comfortable route, to look the other way and simply not think about it; I know I did. Pro-Lifers cannot treat such people with contempt- the way they are treated- but need to deal with them respectfully, set an example by actions more than words, lead them to comprehend the tragedy that is abortion, and understand that they are largely pawns for political and cultural elites who are quite good at making what is reprehensible seem delightful. Here is an absolute fact: once the baby is aborted, all choice ends.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Jesse Jackson made his name as a civil rights leader following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Prior to discovering the lucrative world of race hustling and selling his soul for 30 pieces of silver, he was a serious person with ability for profound thought. He is now 83 and has become kind of a pathetic figure, a has-been who occasionally gets his name in the news, but when he was in his mid-30s he wrote a compelling essay that rationally explained pro-life philosophy and beliefs, especially related to race, entitled How we respect life is the overriding moral issue (Right to Life News, January 1977):

The question of "life" is The Question of the 20th century. Race and poverty are dimensions of the life question, but discussions about abortion have brought the issue into focus in a much sharper way. How we will respect and understand the nature of life itself is the over-riding moral issue, not of the Black race, but of the human race.

The question of abortion confronts me in several different ways. First, although I do not profess to be a biologist, I have studied biology and know something about life from the point of view of the natural sciences. Second, I am a minister of the Gospel and therefore, feel that abortion has a religious and moral dimension that I must consider.

Third, I was born out of wedlock (and against the advice that my mother received from her doctor) and therefore abortion is a personal issue for me. From my perspective, human life is the highest good, the summum bonum . Human life itself is the highest human good and God is the supreme good because He is the giver of life. That is my philosophy. Everything I do proceeds from that religious and philosophical premise.

Life is the highest good and therefore you fight for life, using means consistent with that end. Life is the highest human good not on its own naturalistic merits, but because life is supernatural, a gift from God. Therefore, life is the highest human good because life is sacred. Biologically speaking, thousands of male sperms are ejaculated into the female reproductive tract during sexual intercourse, but only once in a while do the egg and sperm bring about fertilization. Some call that connection accidental, but I choose to call it providential. It takes three to make a baby: a man, a woman and the Holy Spirit.

I believe in family planning. I do not believe that families ought to have children, as some people did where I was growing up, by the dozens. I believe in methods of contraception -- prophylactics, pills, rhythm, etc. I believe in sex education. We ought to teach it in the home, the school, the church, and on the television. I think that if people are properly educated sexually they will appreciate the act and know its ultimate function, purpose and significance.

Only the name has changed

In the abortion debate one of the crucial questions is when does life begin. Anything growing is living. Therefore human life begins when the sperm and egg join and drop into the fallopian tube and the pulsation of life takes place. From that point, life may be described differently (as an egg, embryo, fetus, baby, child, teenager, adult), but the essence is the same. The name has changed but the game remains the same.

Human beings cannot give or create life by themselves, it is really a gift from God. Therefore, one does not have the right to take away (through abortion) that which he does not have the ability to give.

Some argue, suppose the woman does not want to have the baby. They say the very fact that she does not want the baby means that the psychological damage to the child is reason enough to abort the baby'. I disagree. The solution to that problem is not to kill the innocent baby, but to deal with her values and her attitude toward life that has allowed her not to want the baby. Deal with the attitude that would allow her to take away that which she cannot give.

Some women argue that the man does not have the baby and will not be responsible for the baby after it is born, therefore it is all right to kill the baby. Again the logic is off. The premise is that the man is irresponsible.

If that is the problem, then deal with making him responsible. Deal with what you are dealing with, not with the weak, innocent and unprotected baby. The essence of Jesus' message dealt with this very problem -- the problem of the inner attitude and motivation of a person. "If in your heart . . ." was his central message. The actual abortion (effect) is merely the logical conclusion of a prior attitude (cause) that one has toward life itself. Deal with the cause not merely the effect when abortion is the issue.

Pleasure, pain and suffering

Some of the most dangerous arguments for abortion stem from popular judgments about life's ultimate meaning, but the logical conclusion of their position is never pursued. Some people may, unconsciously, operate their lives as if pleasure is life's highest good, and pain and suffering man's greatest enemy. That position, if followed to its logical conclusion, means that that which prohibits pleasure should be done away with by whatever means are necessary. By the same rationale, whatever means are necessary should be used to prevent suffering and pain. My position is not to negate pleasure nor elevate suffering, but merely to argue against their being elevated to an ultimate end of life. Because if they are so elevated, anything, including murder and genocide, can be carried out in their name.

Often people who analyze and operate In the public sphere (some sociologists, doctors, politicians, etc.) are especially prone to argue in these ways. Sociologists argue for - population control on the basis of a shortage of housing, food, space, etc. I raise two issues at this point: (1) It is strange that they choose to start talking about population control at the same time that Black people in America and people of color around the world are demanding their rightful place as human citizens and their rightful share of the material wealth in the world. (2) People of color are for the most part powerless with regard to decisions made about population control. Given the history of people of color in the modern world we have no reason to assume that whites are going to look out for our best interests.

Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educate more people. Here arguments for inconvenience and economic savings take precedence over arguments for human value and human life. I read recently where a politician from New York was justifying abortion because they had prevented 10,000 welfare babies from being born and saved the state $15 million. In my mind serious moral questions arise when politicians are willing to pay welfare mothers between $300 to $1000 to have an abortion, but will not pay $30 for a hot school lunch program to the already born children of these same mothers.

I think the economic objections are not valid today because we are confronted with a whole new economic problem. The basic and historic economic problem has been the inability to feed everyone in the world even If the will were there to do so. They could not produce enough to do the job even if they wanted to. An agrarian and disconnected world did not possess the ability to solve the basic economic problem. That was tragic, but hardly morally reprehensible. Today, however, we do not have the same economic problem. Our world is basically urban, industrial, interconnected, and technological so that we now, generally speaking, have the ability to feed the peoples of the world but lack the political and economic will to do so. That would require basic shifts of economic and political power in the world and. we are not willing to pay that price -- the price of justice. The problem now is not the ability to produce but the ability to distribute justly.

Psychiatrists, social workers and doctors often argue for abortion on the basis that the child will grow up mentally and emotionally scared. But who of us is complete? If incompleteness were the criteria for taking life we would all be dead. If you can justify abortion on the basis of emotional incompleteness then your logic could also lead you to killing for other forms of incompleteness -- blindness, crippleness, old age.

Life is public and universal

There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of higher order than the right to life. I do not share that view. I believe that life is not private, but rather it is public and universal. If one accepts the position that life is private, and therefore you have the right to do with it as you please, one must also accept the conclusion of that logic. That was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside of your right to concerned.

Another area that concerns me greatly, namely because I know how it has been used with regard to race, is the psycholinguistics involved in this whole issue of abortion. If something can be dehumanized through the rhetoric used to describe it, then the major battle has been won. So when American soldiers can drop bombs on Vietnam and melt the faces and hands of children into a hunk of rolling protoplasm and in their minds say they have not maimed or killed a fellow human being something terribly wrong and sick has gone on in that mind. That is why the Constitution called us three-fifths human and then whites further dehumanized us by calling us "niggers." It was part of the dehumanizing process. The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify that which they wanted to do and not even feel like they had done anything wrong. Those advocates of taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder; they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human. Rather they talk about aborting the fetus. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified.

In conclusion, even if one does take life by aborting the baby, as a minister of Jesus Christ I must also inform and-or remind you that there is a doctrine of forgiveness. The God I serve is a forgiving God. The men who killed President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. can be forgiven. Everyone can come to the mercy seat and find forgiveness and acceptance. But, and this may be the essence of my argument, suppose one is so hard-hearted and so in-different to life until he assumes that there is nothing for which to be forgiven. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?

It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.