Diversity Marks Pro-Life Movement

It features prominent female leaders and black activists, and has far more support from non-religious Americans than abortion supporters admit. Late last year, the Church of God in Christ, the largest Pentecostal denomination and overwhelmingly African-American and Democrat, unveiled its “Resolution on the Sanctity of Human Life.” The resolution stated:

“Abortion is genocide. Abortion must end to protect the life of the unborn. This issue of personhood has haunted America since the Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Roe v. Wade decisions. Just as slavery was overturned in America, Jim Crow was defeated, and Nazi Germany was overthrown, we pray that the heinous industry of abortion will become morally reprehensible worldwide.”

Pro-life leaders often mention the deep ties between the earliest legal abortion advocates and the eugenics movement, noting that Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, wanted to decrease what she saw as “unfit” populations including, in her view, blacks. She promoted birth control, though not abortion, to limit lowincome and minority groups, and proposed mandatory sterilization for those she deemed “feeble-minded.” Such views were widely shared among the earliest abortion advocates.

Secular Pro-Life, founded in 2009 by Kelsey Hazzard, represents non-religious pro-lifers. She is assisted by Terrisa Bukovinac, a member of Democrats for Life and founder of Pro-Life San Francisco, which aims to galvanize West Coast young people. After seeing videos of abortion procedures, she became prolife. “You can’t justify abortion any more than you can justify the killing of a born person. There is no consistent, objective distinction between an unborn person and a human being.” [Alexandra DeSanctis,The Pro-life Movement You’ve Never Heard Of, National Review, 4/6/20. Additional groups are highlighted in her article.]