Interview - Abortion rate hurts black women, activist says

Alveda C. King, both the daughter and niece of Christian ministers and civil rights leaders, has become an outspoken pro-life advocate, after having an abortion herself more than 30 years ago. King talks about the devastating effects of abortion on the African-American community, which has a disproportionately high rate of abortions. While about 14 percent of the women of childbearing age in the United States are African-American, African-American women procured about 35 percent of the abortions reported to the Centers for disease control in 2000, the last year for which statistics are available. King, an Atlanta resident, spoke Oct. 23 at the University of Illinois at Chicago in an event sponsored by the Respect Life Office, the Office for Black Catholics and the UIC Catholic Medical Student Association, among others.

The Catholic New World: What is the effect of abortion in the African-American community? How is it different from its effect on other groups?

Alveda C. King: It is the very same effect. However, I believe that it is important for members of the African-American community, who have been relatively silent on the issue in the past, to become more vocal. I believe that people in the African-American community will be able to appreciate the voice of an African-American woman who has experienced the devastating effects of abortion.

TCNW: What are the effects of abortion?

ACK: After the baby is gone, the mother is depressed. She can experience suicidal tendencies, eating disorders, breast cancer, cervical cancer, circulatory issues. All of these are involved in the post-effects of abortion, and I have experienced many of them. Alarmingly, there are more abortions in the African-American community than any other community, and yet our population is smaller, so we’re affected a far more alarming rate. It’s important that this information be given.

I like to say there is a choice. God himself said it in his word: “Today I put before you blessings and curses, life and death. Choose life.” (Dt 30:19)

So we have a choice, but God himself said, “choose life,” and we need to choose that abundant life that Jesus came to give us for our children and for ourselves. A woman who has an abortion is going to have some devastating aftereffects.

TCNW: I’m curious as to why you think the African-American community has been more silent on abortion.

ACK: We have been more silent. Sometimes in the churches, you will hear the pastors say abortion is a sin, but it’s almost as if it’s a secret. I’ve had African-American women say to me, “That’s private. Why do you tell about it? It’s personal.” Certainly it’s personal pain, but as the Word of God teaches us, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” In our communities, where women keep that to themselves, we are holding a lot of pain and a lot of injury and a lot of suffering.

TCNW: So with no one talking about it, you have people trying to make decisions in a vacuum?

ACK: Yes. Even when I look at my own situation, if I had been at home, with my home base, my Christian faith, my Christian family, I would not have had the abortion. I was out of my city, I was away from my family and I was pressured to get that abortion. The father didn’t want it (the baby), and I didn’t see any options. I was a very young woman, and Roe vs. Wade had just passed. A lot of times, women—not just black women—are pressured to make this decision. They feel under enormous pressure. Sometimes it’s “I don’t have enough money.” Sometimes it’s “I don’t want people to know.” Sometimes it’s “I can’t finish school.” Sometimes it’s “The baby’s daddy’s going to kill me if I have the baby.” There are many reasons that are brought to bear.

TCNW: How did you go from having an abortion to being a spokesperson for the pro-life movement?

ACK: From 1973, when I had the abortion, to 1983, I was not a born-again Christian. I believed in Jesus Christ, that he was the Son of God, that he died on the cross and that he rose again. I believed he was born of the Virgin Mary. However, I was not serving the Lord. In 1983, I had a personal encounter with the Lord and I was led to receive Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. Once I did that, I realized deeply that my willingness to cause the death of my child was a sin, and that I needed to repent and I needed forgiveness and I received that.

At that time, all of the crying and me wondering if the baby felt it, and if it was a boy or a girl began to go away. It took time. From 1983 to today—even today I have feelings about it.

After becoming a born-again Christian, I began to share. I was a professor teaching business law, and as I was teaching about morals and values, I began to question, “What about the unborn baby? Is he or she not like a slave?” I began to talk about my own experience. Girls and boys and men and women would come by my office after class and quietly knock or scratch on that door and say, “I was thinking about having an abortion,” or “I had one. Can you help me?” So it was very small effort for a long time.

Then as I began to be invited to speak as an evangelist, I began to speak on that. People responded, and began to ask me to share that message.

TCNW: Has the response always been supportive?

ACK: Not always, especially from those who want to make abortion appear as though it is a civil rights issue. Of course, it’s not. I was in the civil rights movement. My uncle was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and my dad was the Rev. Alfred Daniel Williams King, or A.D. King. I know what we fought for in the civil rights movement, and it was certainly not abortion.

I’ve had people say, “A woman has the right to decide what she will do with her own body,” and I always say, “Yes, a woman has a right to decide what to do with her body. However, the body of that baby is not hers. That’s an individual separate from her that is being housed in her. She becomes a slave master, as it were, because that child belongs to the mother for those nine months. Across the civil rights community, that is still a big issue.

The churches across America have to come out on this issue. The burden often falls to the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church fights for life, as it should. But every church, every faith, should fight for life. It should not be a partisan, denominational issue, because the word of God is for everyone.

TCNW: How would the 1960s-era civil rights leaders have felt about abortion?

ACK: If you go by what Martin Luther King himself said, he said, “The Negro cannot win if he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” That’s out of Dr. King’s own mouth. People say, “But he accepted an award from Planned Parenthood.” Actually, he did, but that was before Planned Parenthood revealed its hand for an agenda of death. When they started out, they said they wanted to help families, they wanted to promote well-being in the communities. True civil rights activists uphold the rights of all people, and the unborn child is a person, as we all know.

TCNW: Does your analogy of the unborn child as a slave strick a chord in among African Americans?

ACK: It does. Some don’t like it. But when I show them scripturally that “the blood of the infant cries out from the earth,” when I show them the Scripture of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not murder”—to take the life of an innocent baby is definitely murder. It’s wrong.

But there is an answer. The Bible also says there will be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. With that being the case, once a woman has repented, she has assurance, as I do, that she will see her child in heaven, and that God forgives her and she can begin to heal. That is the most important part of the message for those who have had abortions.

For those who haven’t had abortions or are considering it, the message is that there are options. We must fight for the unborn, and for women.

King’s book, “Sons of Thunder: The King Family Legacy,” is available at local bookstores and online booksellers.