"We Stand Here United Today – United for Life,
With Prayers to End the Killing" -- Part One
Part 2

Editor's note. In the March issue of National Right to Life we will have a fuller account, along with photos, of a remarkable gathering. On February 2, twenty-one Black women participated in a pro-life press conference sponsored by Black Americans for Life. The theme of the conference was set by Day Gardner, National Director of Black Americans for Life. The following is her speech. In the NRL News story, we will include excerpts from other speakers as well.
 
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This is Black History Month, and I say it proudly because I know how far we have come. Throughout the entire month of February Black people all over the United States will commemorate the trials, tribulations, and the many achievements and successes of African-American people.
 
I stand here as part of a Coalition! I stand here with a wall of Black women, my sisters, from all backgrounds and walks of life. We stand before you today to make one thing perfectly clear: that abortion kills children and hurts women.
 
The knives of abortionists have slaughtered more than 14 million Black babies. Beautiful perfectly-formed babies have been scraped out of their mother's womb in pieces, or jammed in the back of their heads with scissors to have their brains sucked out so that a dead baby can be delivered.
 
Since 1973, more than 14 million of our Black children have died this way, while most of us said nothing.
 
Well, we are fed up! My sisters and I are fed up with saying nothing. We are fed up with hearing the abortion industry tell us that they are helping us by making it easy to kill black babies.
 
We have felt shame and blame, and we have been quiet for much too long, and we will not be quiet any longer! We will no longer avert our eyes. We will no longer turn away or shut our mouths to the evil practice of abortion.
 
We represent Black women of America. For each Black woman or girl you see and will hear from this morning, there are thousands upon thousands more who feel exactly the way we do!
 
We stand here to tell you the game is up! We are on to the lies of the multi-billion dollar abortion industry. Most abortion facilities are purposefully placed in our neighborhoods.
 
If we are to be honest with ourselves, we have to admit that there are those who believe that Black children are expendable. There are those who believe that communities will be safer with fewer Black teenagers, with fewer Black children.
 
Black women represent only 13% of the population, yet more than 35% of all abortions in the United States are performed on Black women.
 
We must realize that some of those in support of abortion are trying to engineer solutions to societal problems – not by working to eliminate discrimination, but by reducing the number of Blacks through abortion.
 
Abortion is the #1 killer of African-Americans, killing more Black people than heart disease, cancer, stroke, crime, and all other deaths combined! We lost 400,000 Black babies to abortion last year alone. And Black Americans all across the country, including my colleagues here, mourn that loss.
 
Every year, throughout Black History Month, we reminisce about the struggles and the achievements of African-American people in our country.
 
I believe that we must also recognize our failures. We have failed our children – for allowing abortion to dominate our past! We are at fault for listening while abortion providers tell us that abortion is a simple solution to an unwanted pregnancy. There is nothing simple about killing innocent children. And shame on all of us who still don't know what an abortion really is.
 
But there is hope! While abortion is part of our African-American history, it does not have to be part of our future! We can't change history – but what we do today will become tomorrow's history. So let's make it a history we can all be proud of.
 
We can give our Black children a chance – just a chance to experience life. A chance at life is such a small thing to ask.
 
We stand here united today – united for life, with prayers to end the killing."
 
Please send your comments to Dave Andrusko at dandrusko@nrlc.org.

Part 2