News

Thursday June 3, 2010


Pro-Life Ad Campaign Urges Black Women to Choose Adoption Over Abortion

By Peter J. Smith

ATLANTA, Georgia, June 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Fresh from their first success, a Georgia billboard campaign exposing the abortion industry’s deliberate targeting of the black community has begun phase two: informing black women that adoption, not abortion, is the answer for a crisis pregnancy.

The new billboard campaign “Black and Unwanted,” launched by Georgia Right to Life and the Radiance Foundation, is continuing to hit home with black Americans by revealing that abortion is devastating their communities and dwindling their demographic contribution to the U.S. population.

In 2008 the Georgia Division of Health reported that 18,901 abortions were performed on black women. According to the pro-life groups behind the billboard campaign, that figure makes Georgia the leading state in the U.S. for black abortions.

“We are now emphasizing that there are alternatives to abortion, such as adoption,” Catherine Davis, Director of Minority Outreach for GRTL, told LifeSiteNews.com. Davis said that message is the second stage of their initiative to educate Georgia’s communities about the impact of abortion, especially on blacks, “calling attention to the fact that there are other options besides terminating the life of the baby.”

The campaign has placed over sixty billboards in the cities of Augusta, Macon, and Savannah. In the next few weeks, the billboards will extend to several major thoroughfares in the Metro Atlanta area.

The first phase of the campaign was designed to alert members of the black community that there were “Too Many Aborted” black babies in comparison to the rest of the U.S. population.

“According to the CDC, African Americans have abortions at three times the rate of white women and twice the rate of all other races combined,” said Ryan Bomberger, creator of the billboards and co-founder of the Radiance Foundation. Bomberger himself was adopted.

Abortion advocates say that black women have higher abortion rates because they have a higher fertility rate (16.4%) when compared with the total U.S. population (14.3%) according to the latest CDC data.

However, birth percentages from the Black community tell a different story – one of demographic death.

According to the CDC, non-Hispanic Black women accounted for just 6.8% of the total national births in 2007. Their fertility rate and birth percentages actually declined from 2006, when they accounted for 6.9% of births and had a fertility rate of 16.5.

In contrast, non-White Hispanics, who constitute 15.4% of the U.S. population, accounted for 25% of the nation’s births, increasing from 24.3% in 2006.

An astonishing fact, Davis told LSN, is that black Americans are largely unaware of how abortion has disproportionately affected them. Nine times out of ten, she said, the average black person “would not think of abortion as ‘a black issue.’ Most would characterize it as a ‘white issue.’”

When asked why, Davis explained that the overwhelmingly white face of the pro-life movement has partly contributed to this impression.

“The faces that you see praying in front of an abortion clinic, the faces that you see doing ‘operation rescue,’ and all the other things that we do to try to save the lives of babies are white faces,” she said. “Very rarely do you see black people standing in front of an abortion clinic, or even talking about abortion, it’s very hush-hush in the black community.”

However, the other side of the coin is that black women by and large do not discuss the experience of abortion – and with very few exceptions, black pastors do not talk about abortion or its spiritual ramifications. But the billboards from Radiance Foundation and GRTL have begun a long overdue conversation about the issue: the billboards continue to gain steam as mainstream outlets and talk radio shows pick up the story.

Davis said that many people in the black community have reached out via emails, blogs, twitter, and by contacting Radiance Foundation and GRTL directly. Some thank the pro-life organizations for finally opening their eyes, and others say they now feel free to share their secret experience of abortion.

Davis recalled one young black woman, who stood out as an example of the campaign’s positive impact.

“In her circle of friends, every single one of them had had abortions, but they had never spoken of it openly until those billboards went up,” said Davis. “Now they have the freedom to talk about it.”

“The impact has been tremendous,” she concluded. “And as I said, we are seeing people respond in a way that very clearly demonstrates to us that we’re having a positive impact and not a negative impact that the pro-abortion movement wants the larger community to believe.”

To find out more about the Radiance Foundation/ GRTL campaign, click here: https://www.toomanyaborted.com/

Read previous coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

Cutting Edge Media Campaign Links Abortion to Racism

https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10021502.html

Abortion Is Devastating the African American Community… Is Anyone Noticing?

https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030202.html