What's Wrong With This Picture?

We are all well-versed in the litany of complaint as it regards disparities between whites and blacks in America; the smorgasbord of insults includes matters as significant as life expectancy, drug-related incarceration rates, academic performance and net worth, as well as such picayunes as a higher proportion of black children living in foster care and the lower use of second-generation antipsychotics in black schizophrenics. All of these variances are represented as ipso facto arguments for the existence of an overarching institutional racism by the modern civil rights grievance industry.

Given the evident preoccupation with racial disparities, it is interesting that there is at least one observable divergence that is viewed as wholly unremarkable by civil rights organizations. Considering the astronomical rate of black out-of-wedlock births, it is striking that - according to data from the Guttmacher Institute - African American women are nearly four times as likely to have abortions as compared to white women. Indeed, the typical profile of a woman having an abortion is an unmarried black woman between 18-24 years old with an annual income of less than $15,000. To some, the variance between abortion rates for whites and blacks is explained by the fact that the abortion rate for women living below the poverty line is more than four times that of women who are above 300 percent of the poverty line.

I now plead your forbearance for my indulging my inner skeptic by pointing out that this difference in abortion rates could well have something to do with the origins of organizations like Planned Parenthood, which has its roots in the equally racist (as evidenced by her account of speaking at a KKK rally), elitist and eugenicist beliefs of its founder, Margaret Sanger; Sanger articulated as much in her book "The Pivot of Civilization." As distinct from present connotations, Sanger defined birth control as "not merely the limitation of births, but the application of intelligent guidance over the reproductive power." She later goes on to sketch the contours of her beliefs on the importance of "guidance" over reproduction, particularly as it pertains to her genetic bete noir, the "feeble-minded."

The problem of the dependent, delinquent and defective elements in modern society, we must repeat, cannot be minimized because of their alleged small numerical proportion to the rest of the population. The proportion seems small only because we accustom ourselves to the habit of looking upon feeble-mindedness as a separate and distinct calamity to the race, as a chance phenomenon unrelated to the sexual and biological customs not only condoned but even encouraged by our so- called civilization. The actual dangers can only be fully realized when we have acquired definite information concerning the financial and cultural cost of these classes to the community, when we become fully cognizant of the burden of the imbecile upon the whole human race; when we see the funds that should be available for human development, for scientific, artistic and philosophic research, being diverted annually, by hundreds of millions of dollars, to the care and segregation of men, women, and children who never should have been born.

Much of Sanger's invective is directed against the poor and their children. And to be sure, the current incarnation of Planned Parenthood (by way of the Guttmacher Institute) has concerned itself much with the "right" of indigent women to have abortions.

Lest we one concludes that this phenomenon is of recent vintage, statistics for 1993 suggest that abortion rates for black women were 2.3 times those of whites. I confess a special sort of befuddlement over this situation, but perhaps I should be more nonplussed. As it turns out, one of the earliest and most articulate defenders of human life in utero has since come to accept another sort of wisdom than that which he espoused in the 1970s.

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 which has allowed her not to want the baby. Deal with the attitude that would allow her to take away that which she cannot give.

The essay from which the above was excerpted was described by the Washington Post as having "intellectual power," with the Post going on to say that it was written with "clarity and succinctness." Since his writing for the National Right to Life News in January 1977, Rev. Jesse Jackson has had a convenient change of heart, such occurring right about the time that he sought the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1988. As much was noted in a Post article (archive purchase required) from May 1988, with the story going on to comment that if the Jackson of the 1970s were to debate the 1980s version "the old would flatten the new and leave him mumbling pro-choice slogans."

As has been noted elsewhere, the trite banalities emanating from the "civil wrongs" Left are but as rhetorical slop for hogs. Rather than concern themselves with the most exigent threats to black life at present (black criminality being foremost among them), today's Jesse Jackson - along with his Planned Parenthood confederates - seek to add their efforts and energies to all that besets the African American community. It is a sad state of affairs for blacks when our generals turn tail and join the enemy, and when our future warriors are killed before they are born.