By Cheryl Sullenger

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Washington, DC – As the nation pauses to remember the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us also remember that abortion has taken a dreadful toll on the African American community, which continues to be disproportionately targeted for abortion.
Certainly, in order to realize Dr. King’s dream for children to be “judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” they must first be allowed to be born.
Perhaps nowhere is racial discrimination more evident than inside an American abortion clinic.
While African-Americans comprise 13.2% of the total U.S. population, Black women receive a 29.7 percent of all abortions in this country. Among African-Americans, the abortion ratio (number of abortions per 1,000 births) is a staggering 459, compared to 132 among whites and 208 among Hispanics.
Poor urban women of color are particularly vulnerable to aggressive abortion marketing.
According to ProtectingBlackLife.org, 79% of all Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are located within walking distance of African-American or Hispanic neighborhoods.
When abortions go wrong, it more likely that women of color are the ones who end up on slabs in the morgue. In the past five years, four out of five abortion-related maternal deaths documented by Operation Rescue have involved Black or Hispanic women.

• March 21, 2014: Lakisha Wilson, a 22-year old Black woman received a fatal abortion at Preterm abortion clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, which targets primarily women from the African-American community for abortions. Her abortion was done by Lisa Perriera, who is white.
• February 13, 2013: Maria Santiago, a 45-year old Hispanic woman, died from a mishandled abortion at a Baltimore abortion mill located in residential condominium complex. That facility, targeted urban women of color, was later closed by the Maryland Department of Health and Hygiene for dangerous practices. That facility was owned by Steven Chase Brigham, who is white.
• July 20, 2012: Tonya Reaves, a 24-year old Black woman died as the results of a botched, incomplete abortion at an urban Chicago, Illinois, Planned Parenthood abortion facility, which is positioned to target women from the Black community for abortions. Her abortion was done by Mandy Gittler, who is also white.
• January 25, 2010: Alexandra Nunez, a 37-year old Hispanic woman, died from an incompetent abortion done Robert Hosty, a white abortionist who targeted poor Black and Hispanic neighborhoods of New York City. Hosty never bothered to attempt resuscitation measures. When paramedics arrived, she was found dead in a pool of blood on the abortion table with her legs still in the stirrups.

In the retrospective of history, we can look back on social evils such as human sacrifice, gladiatorial blood-sports, generational slavery, and the Jewish Holocaust and find relief that these evils have been soundly rejected by the vast majority of humanity. However, we continue to tolerate the abortion of pre-born babies using the most barbaric of dismemberment methods, especially among racial minorities.
This is a tragic dichotomy that requires immediate correction, and Operation Rescue is among the many pro-life groups committed to ending the evil of abortion in America, for the sake of future children of all races.
If our nation is to ever truly realize Dr. King’s dream that “this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’” that equality must be extended to the pre-born babies, regardless of race, or we have learned nothing from the struggles of the past.
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Note: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s niece, Alveda King, is a dedicated pro-life activist who has written the foreword to the book Abortion Free, by Troy Newman and Cheryl Sullenger. That book is available now at Amazon.com, and from WorldNetDaily.com.