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No Conspiracy Theories Needed? Abortion Foes Cry Slow Genocide 1y On February 19, 2009, Rev. Walter Hoye, executive elder of the Progressive

Missionary Baptist Church of Berkeley, California, was sentenced to 30 days in

jail for violating an Oakland law mandating a buffer between protesters and

clinic patients. Hoye targets women entering abortion clinics to draw

attention to the devastating impact abortion has had on the African-American

community. Hoye claims a special calling to work for the end of the genocide-by-abortion taking place in the African-American community. Hoyes fellow

activists announced via press release that a host of black pro-life leaders would

descend on Oakland for the sentencing to stand in solidarity with Hoye against a deliberate attempt to silence the

Church and its prophetic role in protecting the innocent lives in our community and especially Black babies.

Increasingly vocal anti-abortion activists claim to fight abortion on anti-racist grounds; they tar abortion and family

planning services as racist and eugenicist population control measures leading to a slow black genocide.

In September, 2009, four Republican and two Democratic congressmen proposed the Susan B. Anthony Prenatal

Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, which would prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or race,

and for other purposes.

Anti-abortion groups argue that abortion is a concerted attack on people of color. Black and brown populations are,

according to the argument, targeted for aggressive population control by abortion providers who deliberately place

clinics in inner-city, low-income neighborhoods, resulting in higher rates of abortion among Latina and black women

in the United States compared to white women.

Though two recent studies found that these statistics were due to a higher incidence of unwanted pregnancies among

women of color no conspiracy theories needed anti-abortion activists continue to claim that providers are

targeting black and Latino populations, and have leafleted inner-city neighborhoods with denunciations of Klan

Parenthood, juxtaposing images of lynchings and aborted fetuses with the slogan lynching is for amateurs. The

arguments popularity is climbing, spurring numerous rallies, publications, and organizations devoted to spreading

word of abortion providers supposedly racist motives. Indeed, Rep. Franks, the lead sponsor of the Susan B. Anthony

bill, said he was inspired by a Washington DC abortion clinic protest last April that denounced the black genocide of

abortion.

Among the most prominent names in the movement are Day Gardner, of the National Black Pro-Life Union; Rev.

Clenard Childress and Johnny Hunter of the group Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN, at the Web site

Black Genocide.org); and Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King. King addressed the Congressional Black

Caucus Foundations 38th Annual Legislative Convention, arguing that fully 1/4 of the black population of the U.S.

has gone missing due to abortion.

In November 2009, vocal anti-abortion advocate (and former NFL player) Rev. Herb H. Lusk II, the recipient of a $1

million faith-based grant under President Bush, opened a Philadelphia crisis pregnancy center with the aim of

curtailing abortions among black women. Said Lusk, When I began to consider that the African-American populationalone has declined in the past three years across the nation, I realized that were not procreating our own race; and

that is a direct result of abortion in our communities.

A group of white anti-abortion youth activists arrested in 2009 in Birmingham quickly capitalized on their location to

declare: Outrageous Civil Rights Violations in Birmingham. Were just doing what Rosa Parks would have done,

claimed an activist.

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No Conspiracy Theories Needed? Abortion Foes Cry Slow Genocide 2This sort of martyrdom conferred onto pro-lifers has a flip side as well; the pro-lifers have begun to vilify abortion-

and contraception-rights advocates as modern-day Klanswomen. In late January 2009, the religious right organized

against House Speaker Nancy Pelosis proposed inclusion of contraception in the stimulus package, in part by

denouncing her as a bigot and a racist who wanted to reduce the number of children [born] to the nations poorest

economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities. The Pro-Life Action League made a similar

criticism this week against the Guttmacher Institute, claiming that the Institutes call for publicly-funded birth controltakes aim at the poor by recommending more government spending on programs to reduce the birth rate, and that

it smacks of racism.

Klan Parenthood?

Many major anti-abortion groups have adopted the black genocide argument in recent yearsappropriating

traditionally liberal anti-racist rhetoric to accuse Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, of being a eugenicist

motivated by a desire for racial fitness through breeding; or citing past instances of abuses in population control as

condemnation of all family planning and reproductive health programs today.

Margaret Sanger did embrace the popular theory of eugenics in the 1920s, though her positions were more nuanced,

voluntary, and individualistic than the caricature preferred by anti-abortion activists, and she worked in partnership

with esteemed black leaders of the day, such as W.E.B. DuBois and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National

Council of Negro Women, in setting up her family planning services in Harlem.

A group of UCLA anti-abortion activists made taped calls to numerous Planned Parenthood clinics, posing as racist

donors. The student-activists requested that their money be used to abort the fetuses of black women. When one

clinic official accepted such a donation, they publicized the tape of the conversation as proof of Planned Parenthoods

racist agenda.

Although feminists and reproductive rights advocates have successfully changed population-control programs to

prioritize womens rights over demographic quotas enforced through abusive or coercive measures, fertility control

bears the cross of a history that includes abuse and coercion of women of color and poor women.

The most recent example in the United States is Louisiana Republican John LaBruzzos 2008 proposal to pay poor

women $1,000 to sterilize themselves. The argument against black genocide through abortion has been taken up by

Christian conservatives. Stephen G. Peroutka of Pro-Life Radio called for the defunding of the racist agenda of

Planned Parenthood, as the first, necessary step towards combating racism.

Obamas presidency and the GOPs efforts to appeal to the hip-hop generation appear to have prompted resurgent

interest in these arguments as a race-conscious update to the anti-abortion message. A number of anti-abortion

organizations have made public and prominent hires of activists who frame their anti-abortion work in such terms: Pro-Life

Unity hired a vice president, Samuel Mosteller, from the ranks of the black genocide faction of the anti-abortion

movement; Georgia Right to Life announced the hire of Catherine Davis to lead outreach to African Americans by claiming

to fight individuals and organizations that have as their mission to eliminate blacks from America; and veteran activists

have issued dozens of press releases demanding that Obama fight racism by fighting abortion.

Anti-abortion proponents see this as a key opportunity for the cause. The Population Research Institute (PRI) has claimed a

new front in the abortion warsone that they hope could associate the pro-life movement with anti-racism and attract a

different demographic of supporters. Anti-abortion intellectuals have long proposed that linking female infanticide and sex-

selective abortion might persuade reluctant supporters of abortion rights to change sides.