African-American Pro-Lifers File Brief With Supreme Court

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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - There is "a long history involving unqualified and uncredentialed abortion providers disproportionately harming black women," African-American pro-life leaders are telling the U.S. Supreme Court.

These words come from a new amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief weighing in on a high-profile case about a Louisiana abortion law. It was filed on behalf of multiple African-American pro-life organizations.

Their brief was filed in the case June Medical Services, L.L.C. v. Gee, challenging a new Louisiana abortion law that requires abortionists to be licensed doctors and to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The requirement could shut down two of Louisiana's three abortion mills.

"Minority women have an interest in receiving safe medical care from appropriately credentialed medical professionals," the brief argues.

This latest pro-life brief to the High Court comes after hundreds of members of Congress signed two opposing briefs also weighing in, largely along party lines. One, signed by mostly Republicans, supported Louisiana's pro-life measures; the other, signed by mostly Democrats, insisted that abortion be protected.

In the pro-life brief, members of Congress asked the justices to reconsider Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that caused the broad decriminalization of abortion.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a law in Texas similar to the one in Louisiana now being considered. But some argue that's no guarantee the Louisiana law will be overturned as well.

Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox News in October that the current crop of justices may rule differently "because we have a change in the membership on the Supreme Court, and it is probably — I don't know this to be so, but probably — more pro-life."

Since taking office in 2016, President Donald Trump has appointed two justices to the nation's highest court: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Among those who signed their name to the latest pro-life brief is Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The main text of the African-American groups' brief, the "summary of argument," opens:

The struggle for racial equality is not over. The black community experiences a disproportionate share of abortions, often from doctors that do not have the same credentials as those who perform other forms of surgery. Until Act 620, Louisiana's abortion clinics were exempt from the admitting privileges requirement that applies to other outpatient and ambulatory surgical centers in the state. This disparity is significant to black women, who make up the majority of abortion clinic patients and thus bear most of the known risks of abortion in Louisiana. These known risks are life-threatening to mothers.

Elsewhere, it is noted that African-American women obtain abortions at a significantly higher rate than the general population.

"Louisiana's population is 32.7% black," the brief notes, "but black women obtained 61.2% of the abortions performed in Louisiana in 2018."

"This is consistent with an enormous national racial disparity in abortion rates," it states.

"The record in this case established that two-thirds of women who have had an abortion in Louisiana are black," it continues.

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a prominent supporter of eugenics, an ideological push in the 20th century to prevent people from reproducing on account of supposed bad genes. (For instance, the eugenics mentality compelled many states to castrate inmates, the idea being to prevent the spread of supposed criminal genes.)

In 1939, Sanger established "The Negro Project," aimed at reducing the African-American population through contraception and sterilization.

American eugenics, like the kind espoused by Sanger, was a major influence on the Nazis and their fixation with "racial hygiene."

But Sanger's sordid ties to racism have not stopped some from singing her praises.

In December 2016, news spread about a Hollywood film in the works celebrating Sanger's life. A separate biographical film was already put out in 1995 titled Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story.

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