“The future of our state, our society, and our race is at stake in this amendment, and we must protect them.”
By Dave Andrusko
With less than a month remaining before Ohio voters will make a monumental decision whether to enshrine abortion in their state constitution, more than a hundred Black Pastors released a letter calling on Ohioans to oppose Issue 1, “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety.”
“As Black faith and community leaders across Ohio who are called to care for God’s people, we urge our fellow Christians, the Black community, and all Ohioans who believe in the inherent value of every person to vote NO on Issue 1 this November. The future of our state, our society, and our race is at stake in this amendment, and we must protect them.”
The letter begins with this critically important point.
This is not a party line vote, nor is Issue 1 a Republican or Democrat issue. This is a moral issue and for the Black community in particular, it is a life-or-death matter.
The disproportionate impact of abortion on the Black community is truly staggering:
Only 13 percent of Ohio’s population is Black, yet 48 percent of abortions undergone by residents of our state are performed on Black women – a tragic and difficult reality that our community cannot ignore.
But as the Pastor’s letter highlights
Even more alarming is the number of Black children – 20 million – who were killed in the womb between 1973 and the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court last June. That is enough to fill Ohio stadium more than 194 times.
The Pastors underscore how Planned Parenthood has zeroed in Black Americans from the beginning:
The Black community has been the target of the abortion industry for decades, beginning with the deplorable ideology of racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, whose Planned Parenthood organization purposefully established abortion mills in minority neighborhoods and targeted our communities for abortions. …. We can only hope the abortion industry will one day be held to account for its dark history and depraved legacy, but in the meantime, we cannot allow it to continue pushing an agenda driven by racism and greed.
The letter lays out in excruciating detail just how extreme Issue 1 is.
It is more extreme than Roe v. Wade, and it will allow for painful, late-term abortions through all nine months of pregnancy – even after an unborn baby can feel pain. It will permit our children to undergo abortions without parents knowing. And it will continue to rob generations of Black women and men of the insurmountable joy of parenthood.
The letter concludes with a stirring call to action:
Our faith sustains us every day, and it must now spur us on to defeat this amendment and save countless Black lives in doing so. Together, we must send a message to the abortion industry by stopping Issue 1. We must end the targeting of Black babies and instead promote a culture of life. We will make our voices heard, and together we will vote no on Issue 1.