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It is hard to follow the logic of the above statement, after all, this
debate, this crisis, is about abortion and the human dignity of a pre-born
life, it is about the body of a woman and also about the body of her child
that will be dismembered and thrown away as if it were trash without even
the benefit a decent burial. What one does learn from Sharpton's further
remarks is that, for him, the legal sanction to destroy a pre-born baby is a
civil "right" just as the other rights Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and
others fought for. He illustrates this by linking the fight to establish Dr.
King's birthday as a national holiday with the fight to preserve legalized
abortion on demand today. This is how Sharpton phrased it:
But let's not forget, we didn't get Dr. King's birthday because someone
donated it, we had to march, we had to petition, we had to fight, we had to
lobby to get that birthday, and in the end it was a great victory because
even in the deep South, where he was castigated, where he was denounced,
yesterday federal buildings were closed in honor of his day. We must have
the same determination to keep fighting. Remember how we got Roe vs. Wade
in the first place. Some of us may have to roll up our sleeves, but it does
not matter, we cannot let them roll back the clock.
Note in particular the use of the words we, us, and them. Who is being
designated by these terms? Is the pro-abortion "community," or is the
African-American community being designated by the terms we or us? Has he
linked the two groups inseparably? Are those who support the unborn person's
right to live being designated by the term them? If the defenders of unborn
lives are them, then Sharpton's is a particularly perverted understanding of
civil rights. However, this speech is a classic example of the rhetoric
employed by many national African-American political and social leaders in
support of a practice that is the cause of the greatest number of
African-American deaths in this country.
II. Have We Lost Our Traditional Respect For Life?
How can it be that the African-American community, so long noted for its
traditional love and respect for human life, in spite of great hardship,
injustice and struggle, has now become so receptive to the wanton
destruction of human life through abortion? I do not intend to exhaustively
answer this question, but I would like to point out a few influential
factors.
A major cause is the reality that African-Americans, like all other
Americans, have been subjected to and influenced by the shrill and deceptive
campaign of abortion advocates for over thirty years. By now most are
familiar with phrases such as "a woman's right to choose" or "a mass of
cells" or "termination of a fetus." We have become so familiar with these
terms that we really don't examine what they mean anymore. Should we
re-examine them, we might find that they say, or more accurately don't say,
everything they represent.
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