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Pencils, Prisons and Planned Parenthood

When most people speak of Black History Month they speak of the Civil Rights Movements of Martin Luther King Jr, Harriet Tubman or Rosa Parks. They reference the “lunch counter sit-ins” and Hollywood spends millions on movies referencing the movements that helped further the state of African-Americans in our society. These are important and crucial moments in history that should not be devalued or “watered down”. There is one issue however that has continually affected the black community since the early 1960’s yet has been one which has been consistently ignored; Abortion in Black America. What is most important to understand is; not only is the discussion about abortion within the black community necessary, it is vital to understanding the epidemic that is happening within this community.

I recently watched a documentary called “Commonwealth”. The basis of this program was to bring awareness to what is currently happening within the Philadelphia Public School System. There is a lot of social science that goes into understanding what is happening there and I have been following this closely as an Educator but one of the things I found the most interesting was the fact that so many parents interviewed seemed to be blindsided by the rampant school closures happening in their community whereas the teachers could tell you that they saw it coming for years. The cutbacks on supplies, the teacher shortages, the buildings that were unsafe and went without repair, the signs were all there and the watchful ones knew something was coming. This is similar to the pro-life community which for decades has been calling attention to the strategic and systemic killing of black children. We’ve watched the abortion mills being built in the poor communities where disadvantaged families are a prime target for “big abortion”. So where are all these schools that are closing you ask? 93% of the schools that will be closed by the end of 2015 are in low-income areas of Philadelphia, where more than 83% of students are black and live at or below the poverty line. Did I also mention that while they are closing these schools in “a coordinated effort to save the state nearly $304 million” the state is spending over $400 million building a “super-prison”…it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out what’s happening here. This is the definition of “school to prison pipeline”. By closing public schools in low-income or disadvantaged neighborhoods we are pushing children out of the education system and into the corrections system.  For decades research has proven that a lack of access to adequate education is a key factor in determining whether or not a child in a disadvantaged community will become an offender or not; yet throughout the country in urban areas of large metropolitan cities public schools are closing or deteriorating at a rapid rate while prison expansions are doubling. What does this have to do with abortion you ask? Everything; and here’s why. By removing access to education services we are showing these children and their families that we do not value the priority of their potential in the same way we value children from wealthy families or communities. Pulling access to these services restricts parents, particularly single mothers from having resources and options available to them. In public schools where resources are available for teen mothers those girls were more likely to not only finish high school and earn their diploma but to go on to attend college or vocational programs following high school. Without availability of these programs teens facing an unplanned pregnancy are more likely to turn to abortion.

The pro-life community has continually provided evidence about Planned Parenthood’s strategic placement of abortion clinics within low-income/disadvantaged areas. These neighborhoods are being targeted for extermination and where Planned Parenthood fails, the state has no problem stepping in to pick up the slack by closing schools and funneling the children from these communities into the juvenile justice system.  It is almost like the message being sent is “If we can’t kill them, we’ll lock them up” That may seem like a shocking statement to some but as we all know; money is what it all boils down to in the end. The methodical placement of massive abortion mills in disenfranchised communities and low income neighborhoods is reaffirming that the voices and the lives of the disadvantaged do not matter. There is no “choice” for these women because they are continually forced into thinking abortion is their ONLY choice. Money talks and the more “services” that Planned Parenthood can claim to offer {outside abortion} guarantees a continuing funnel of taxpayer dollars to flood their organization. Money earned through the degradation of the black community, soaked in the blood of the innocent black lives lost. What I ask you does this show about the environment that WE as a society have created for these communities. We strip public schools of funding, close them down and take away options for educational growth, we de-value these marginalized communities to the point where the options become PRISON or Planned Parenthood. We hold the members of the community accountable yet take away the majority of their resources. We hold fathers accountable for not being present in their child’s lives yet we devalue their position within the family by denying their paternal rights. We expect so much of them and yet give them so little. How can a person know their true value when the value of their life has been stripped away?  The media is right though, abortion is not Black History, it is Black Present and until we stand up to fight for TRULY equal protection for these devalued families the degradation of a race will continue until Black History Month is all that will be left for African Americans in modern society.

 “When we said we would no longer sit in the back of the bus; a place was reserved for us down at the abortion clinic.”-Dr. Alveda King