There May Be Trouble Ahead...

It’s always nice to see progressives hoist on their own petards…

Anti-abortion activists have been accused of exploiting America's tragic racial history with a growing campaign to persuade black women that the high rate of terminations among African Americans is a racist conspiracy on a par with slavery and lynching.

Heh..!

You can almost see the progressives, eyes bulging, gasping for breath, exclaiming ‘But…but…that’s our line..!’

The strategy has also focused on the fact that a leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, was founded by a woman who was a leading proponent of eugenics, a belief that the human gene pool could be improved by selective breeding and sterilisation, and who heavily promoted birth control among black people.

Which throws a neat little wrinkle into the ‘reproductive rights’ groups; this is undeniable.

And to reinforce what a perfect storm this is, they are getting backing from some areas that the progressives are going to find hard to challenge, given the amount of time they’ve spent painting them as having absolute moral authority:

Other black leaders are backing the emotive message. Johnny Hunter, an African-American pastor and president of the Life Education and Resource Network, a Christian coalition, told a rally in Georgia last month that opposition to abortion is the new civil rights struggle.

And if they thought they could brush this one aside as ‘not authentically black’ (their favoured riposte), then this might make them pause:

The campaign also has the backing of Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, who described abortion among black women as "ethnic cleansing" and "this last bastion of racism".

Oh, dear…

Organisations campaigning for reproductive rights agree that the campaign is having an impact.

Heidi Williamson of SisterSong, an organisation aimed at women from racial minorities, said: "They are taking facts and misrepresenting them to make people be fearful. They are playing on fears already in the community, the mistrust because of the history. Every day we get calls about how women find these ads offensive and manipulative."

Hey, sweetie, you can’t expect your opponents not to learn how to use your own tactics against you, now can you?

She accused anti-abortion groups of ignoring the real causes of the higher rate of terminations among black women such as poverty, poor education and lack of access to birth control.

Ah, of course. Condoms are unknown in the States…

Things are going to get interesting as the pro-abortion groups desperately scramble to find a way out of the hole they have dug for themselves.