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MONTGOMERY, AL, March 6, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Alabama State Rep. Alvin Holmes hit national headlines when he charged that white pro-life activists would force their daughters to abort a child if the father was black. Now his Republican challenger, a black woman, is setting the record straight.

Holmes' incendiary remarks came during a debate on a fetal heartbeat bill. “Ninety-nine percent of all of the white people in here are going to raise their hand that they are against abortion,” Holmes, D-Montgomery, said. “Ninety-nine percent of you sittin' in here now, if your daughter got pregnant by a black man, you gonna make her have an abortion,” he insisted. “You not gonna let her have the baby.”

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He denounced pro-life rhetoric as “a con game. That's for whites, it ain't for blacks.”

His remarks came shortly after Wake Forest Law Professor Gregory Parks suggested in a Huffington Post article that the pro-life movement's alleged “racism” could be used to increase support for the abortion of interracial babies.

But Holmes' black Republican rival begs to differ.

GOP nominee Tijuanna Adetunji, who hopes to take the House seat Holmes has occupied for 40 years, said the pro-life movement has no racial component.

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“He said that being pro-life was for white people. That's not true,” she said.

“Pro-life is loving babies whether they're inside the womb or outside of the womb, whether you're black or white,” she told WSFA television. “It doesn't have a color.”

Holmes' moment of fame may backfire, some in the state say. “Most people in his district are God-fearing folks and oppose abortion,” Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead said. “It is an insult to their intelligence to have ‘their’ representative ranting racial comments like he has done repeatedly during his political career.”

Holmes was elected to the House in 1974 and has served nearly 40 years.

“Alvin Holmes is up for re-election this year and the voters in Montgomery County, District 78, should demand more of their representative. They have a chance to elect someone who will not embarrass them,” Armistead added. “They deserve better.”

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Adetunji, a small business owner and the wife of Fred Adetunji, the pastor of Fresh Anointing House of Worship in Montgomery, says she would better represent the voters' interests.

“I promise by the grace of God I will work on issues that are important to the people,” she said, including reducing the high school dropout rate. “Too many of our youth are falling through the cracks while Mr. Holmes seems to only want to divide people by continually making racial slurs on the House floor.”