So Linda Greenhouse wrote in the New York Times yesterday. I agree with her. But she didn’t mean Frank Lautenberg, did she?
She singled out Ruben Diaz, a New York state senator and pastor of the Christian Community Neighborhood Church in the Bronx, for being “racially inflammatory, dangerous and … tragic” in remarks he made at a recent press conference about New York City’s 41 percent abortion rate, highlighting the disproportionate numbers in the black and Hispanic communities. Pointing that out is rarely welcome, as Rick Santorum learned recently.
Diaz responds via e-mail to her attack:
New York City’s Department of Vital Statistics show that out of every 100 pregnancies, 41 babies are aborted. Forty-nine percent of Hispanic babies are aborted, and 59.8 percent of Black babies are aborted.
And no, these rates do not include use of the morning after-pill.
The New York Times Thursday published an article mocking me and my concerns about these barbaric statistics. It’s laughable to even consider that the author’s opinions were objective … while covering the Supreme Court for the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse proudly marched for abortion rights.
It’s hard to imagine how anyone would consider me or any pro-lifer “nutty” for stating what these statistics show: Abortion in New York City IS racial genocide.
Before we even consider the distress Shirley Chisolm would have felt if she were presented with statistics that demonstrate that the lives of Black and Hispanic babies are discarded at a much higher rate than White babies, let’s take a quick look back at history, when Jesse Jackson preached as a staunch pro-lifer before he entered the national political scene.
In 1970’s, Jesse Jackson said, “Abortion is black genocide. . . . What happens to the mind of a person and the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience?”
It is unfortunate that Linda Greenhouse and her pro-abortion friends ignore the abortion industry’s systemic assault on unborn Hispanics, but as an elected Hispanic official who chairs the New York State Senate’s Puerto Rican and Latino Caucus, my concern for all Hispanics is genuine.
As a Pentecostal minister who serves as pastor of the Christian Community Neighbor Church in the Bronx and as the president of the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization, my voice does matter.
I am truly dismayed that a major publication like the New York Times would provide a platform for someone who, for decades, has placed her energy into promoting a pro-abortion agenda under the pretense of being journalistic. While the author clearly has the right to express herself, her personal views are twisted and detrimental.
We need to lower the genocidal abortion statistics in New York City. Hispanic babies deserve every joy life can bring. If anyone disagrees with that goal, they should probably take a good look in the mirror and be frightened when they see who is looking back.
Well said.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe we should ask John Podhoretz what he thinks about abortion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Genocide" is not well-chosen. Hispanics and blacks are not being forced to abort their babies; they do this of their own free will. This is not something that white people are doing to them, or any other people but themselves.
There are a lot of ugly names for abortion and many of them are truthful, but not "genocide"; calling this genocide is "nutty talk". Conservatives are usually the victim of hyperbolic charges of genocide and should not be quick to abuse others in the same way.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet the illegals come follow the multi-culti Blue American dream!
(Conservatives are so selfish and greedy. This makes us look SO compassionate. )
When they get here, use abortion to control the numbers, because most of us Blue elites just want adults who might somehow, legally or illegally, vote for us, the compassionate ones! Babies can't vote and they might grow up to be conservatives, so abort them. Then let the next wave of illegals in.
(Shhhh! We don't talk about that. We're the good guys, remember?)
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@ Gabriel Hanna, The definition of genocide is as follows :
"Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; . . . imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (see UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Article 2 1948)"
The questin is one of intent.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGenocide can be self inflicted. I prefer definition for lemming (the one not used for the subartic rodent):
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"... a member of a large group of people who blindly follow one another on a course of action that will lead to destruction for all of them."
I don't think it is genocide, when the black and Hispanic birthrates are higher than the white birthrate, and the white birthrate is not high enough for replacement. With these trends, the white race is the one that will be extinct.
A sad pathology, a triumph of evil, but not genocide.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@dougtn and pattatty:
"Self-inflicted genocide" is a contradiction in terms, like "self-inflicted murder". We have an entirely different word for killing oneself, for good reason.
I don't approve of muddying the waters with arguments we know to be bogus when used against us.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI wonder what the press coverage and reaction from the left would be were say David Duke to rise from obscurity and announce he's raising funds to put hundreds of free abortion clinics in inner-city neighborhoods.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe bigotry of the pro-abortion mindset is multi-faceted. I did a search at the Washington Post to see if, as I suspected, the Kermit Gosnell story had been largely buried by the MSM. The only hit was in a weird "On Faith" post by a loony Unitarian lady, the main thrust of which was a rant about the Catholic Church: External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMike Walsh: nutty is the word all right.
Gosnell reminds us of what women will face if abortion is made illegal?
Does that even make sense?
If abortion is made illegal, the majority of people who find themselves pregnant will find that all the energy of the women who care about other women is now being directed toward adoption services.
The only women who will be exposed to situations like that are women who choose to break the law, knowing they are doing so in a horribly risky way. That seems to me a huge improvement over killing women who think they're getting into something "safe".
But you're right about how weird it is that they manage to turn Gosnell's clinic into a rant against Catholics. I guess they're able to turn pretty much anything into a rant against Catholics.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn the US, "race" is too often used as a surrogate for social class. There are many historical reasons for this.
Statistics are generally gathered on this basis, which assists those who wish to make all sorts of arguments condemning Those People Over There. Even well-meaning people can fall into this trap.
Look at the personal income and the family income. Look at the educational status, and levels of knowledge about the use of contraceptives. Look at the availability and affordability of both contraceptives and support for young mothers.
Suddenly, ethnicity disappears, or at least becomes relatively minor as an influence. It is not adoption that is the magic answer -- telling Those People to give up the babies they have carried to term. Nor is it the teaching of abstinence. One might as well impose shotgun weddings.
It is a serious determination to change the social and economic circumstances of the poor that would alter the prevalence of abortion, which is far higher than the most ardent pro-choice campaigner would wish to see. The likelihood of social change becoming a political issue as potent as attacks on abortion and those who choose this last resort, usually after considerable thought, is minimal.
How many ardent pro-life campaigners actually commit themselves to the responsibility of being a long-term mentor and resource to deprived families? How many even oppose devoting any resources to social change?
The social doctrine of the Catholic Church should not be reduced to this single issue, and nor should the moral teachings of Protestants. A broader view would permit both pro-life and pro-choice campaigners to stop demonizing one another, to recognize that both groups have moral principles based in individual rights, however hard they may be to reconcile, and to seek for solutions.
Indeed, abandoning the principle of individual rights for an ethics of care as the foundation for a good society would go a long way towards forming a workable consensus on the necessary actions.
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