O hai racism!

[Saya]

The message on dozens of billboards across the city is provocative: Black children are an "endangered species."
The eyebrow-raising ads featuring a young black child are an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the black community. The reaction from black leaders has been mixed, but the "Too Many Aborted" campaign, which so far is unique to only Georgia, is drawing support from other anti-abortion groups across the country.
"It's ingenious," said the Rev. Johnny Hunter, national director of the Life Education and Resource Network, a North Carolina-based anti-abortion group aimed at African-Americans that operates in 27 states. "This campaign is in your face, and nobody can ignore it."
The billboards went up last week in Atlanta and urge black women to "get outraged."

This is the part where your head explodes:

The effort is sponsored by Georgia Right to Life, which also is pushing legislation that aims to ban abortions based on race.

Black women accounted for the majority of abortions in Georgia in 2006, even though blacks make up just a third of state population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nationally, black women were more than three times as likely to get an abortion in 2006 compared with white women, according to the CDC.
"I think it's necessary," Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue, said of the billboard campaign. "Abortion in the black community is at epidemic proportions. They're not really aware of what's actually going on. If it shocks people ... it should be shocking."
Anti-abortion advocates say the procedure has always been linked to race. They claim Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eradicate minorities by putting birth control clinics in their neighborhoods, a charge Planned Parenthood denies.
"The language in the billboard is using messages of fear and shame to target women of color," said Leola Reis, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Georgia. "If we want to reduce the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies, we need to work as a community to make sure we get quality affordable health care services to as many women and men as possible."
In 2008, Issues4Life, a California-based group working to end abortion in the black community, lobbied Congress to stop funding Planned Parenthood, calling black abortions "the Darfur of America."
Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler said a race-based strategy for anti-abortion activists has gotten a fresh zeal, especially in the wake of the historic election of the country's first black president, Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights.
"He's really out of step with the rest of black America," Scheidler said. "That might be part of what may be shifting here and why a campaign like this is appropriate, to kind of wake up that disconnect."
Abortion rights advocates are disturbed. Spelman College professor Beverly Guy-Sheftall called the strategy a gimmick.
"To use racist arguments to try to bait black people to get them to be anti-abortion is just disgusting," said Guy-Sheftall, who teaches women's history and feminist thought at the historically black women's college.
"These one-issue approaches that are not about saving the black family or black children, it's just a big distraction," she said. "Many black people don't know who Margaret Sanger is and could care less."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...S3HLO0?index=0

[Underwater Ophelia]

"Could care less."

Ugh.

[Despanan]

I like how they point to Obama as being "out of step" with the black community because he supports abortion rights.

If a hell of alot of black people are getting abortions, wouldn't that make him in-step?

[vindicatedxjin]

Sorry I can't help laughing from what Despanan said.

[blindNsect]

Black people (as a culture) are hypocritical. They say one thing, do another. They have a strong religious elements that seems to do nothing but go to the opposite extreme as the other element, which is destructive and aimless.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by blindNsect

Black people (as a culture) are hypocritical. They say one thing, do another. They have a strong religious elements that seems to do nothing but go to the opposite extreme as the other element, which is destructive and aimless.

To my knowledge black people don't hold secret meetings where they decided unanimously what their stance on given topics are. Far as I know the black community is still made up of individuals just like any other group of people, and just like any group they disagree a lot.

Funny thing though as far as white fanatical anti-choice people go, aren't they happy that black women use abortions more than white women? For over a century now they've been harping that white women should breed more because the minorities are going to outnumber the whites.

And again, very sad that the answer is somehow "force the women to bear children they don't want because they're nothing more than breeding machines" rather than "lets prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place."

[RedDollShoes]

Oh I get it. This is the anti-choice movement's way of saying "Look! We like darkies too! See? See?"

[Heretic]

Originally Posted by Saya

To my knowledge black people don't hold secret meetings where they decided unanimously what their stance on given topics are. Far as I know the black community is still made up of individuals just like any other group of people, and just like any group they disagree a lot.

Agreed, and thank you for shedding a light on the darkness of ignorance.

However, I will say this: if there are secret meetings, I'd be quite irritated about never having been invited to one. I'll have to look into that, 'cause I'm all about having other people tell me how to think....


- Heretic

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by blindNsect

Black people (as a culture) are hypocritical. They say one thing, do another. They have a strong religious elements that seems to do nothing but go to the opposite extreme as the other element, which is destructive and aimless.

Hey ALAN! I found a new quote for your signature!

[vindicatedxjin]

I think his beat mine...cuz he brought RELIGION into it :P

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Saya

To my knowledge black people don't hold secret meetings where they decided unanimously what their stance on given topics are.

"So, it's agreed... we'll keep on pretending to like pigs' feet simply to confound the white man."

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Hey ALAN! I found a new quote for your signature!

I thought of something like that when I read it, but it seems there's a character limit. We have to make him say he's not racist for it to be funny.

[vindicatedxjin]

Alan, just admit that you love me.

[Lolly PopMuzik]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

"So, it's agreed... we'll keep on pretending to like pigs' feet simply to confound the white man."

Yesss...It's all falling into place.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Alan

I thought of something like that when I read it, but it seems there's a character limit. We have to make him say he's not racist for it to be funny.

I think he mentioned something like that in an earlier Obama thread...

[Ben Lahnger]

My head is spinning!

The right wing politicos in this country used to complain that too many African American women were having too many babies to collect welfare checks. Now there are right wing politicos that are complaining that not enough African American women are having and keeping their babies?

I feel like I've been hoodwinked and bamboozled!

[Beneath the Shadows]

It is fun watching them run in circles, though.

[Saya]

Don’t call Chip Rogers a hawk.



But that didn’t stop opponents of a controversial abortion bill from chirping about the Senate majority leader’s presence at a Special Judiciary meeting and his subsequent vote to help it pass out of committee.

SB 529 would make it a criminal act for a medical provider to “coerce” a woman into having an abortion, because of the “race, color or gender of the unborn child.”

Rogers, who is not a member of Special Judiciary, voted as an “ex-officio” member of the committee. Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons) was also listed as an “ex-officio,” but was out of the room during the vote.

“Ex-officio members have been used for decades to make sure you have a quorum. We used it for a committee last week,” said Rogers of Woodstock. “It is necessary when you don’t have enough members to vote.”

Rogers stressed that what he was doing was common practice, especially in the last weeks of the session leading up to Crossover Day. He said he was not playing the hawk role, which was a former staple of the House.

Introduced by former Republican House Speaker Glenn Richardson, hawks were House members -- generally members of the GOP -- who could swoop in and vote in any committee. House Speaker David Ralston ended the practice when he was elected during this session.

Sen. Donzella James (D-College Park) was the only Democrat on the committee to show up. And she said that she was "coerced" into coming with a promise that her bill -- which would toughen the laws on repeat burglary offenders -- would be heard in the committee.

"Chairman [John] Wiles told me my bill was on so that he could get a quorum. They got me over here because they needed my presence," said James, adding that a meeting agenda was never posted. "Don't waste my time and don't waste time and money on a bill that is already covered."

After the abortion bill, the committee immediately adjourned as James waved her bill, asking for a hearing.

Wiles (R-Kennesaw) noted that at an earlier Judiciary meeting, eight bills were lost because there was not a quorum.

“Chip and Tommie just provided a quorum,” Wiles said. “The votes were for the bill anyway. It would have passed without Senator Rogers.”

But Robbin Shipp of Planned Parenthood said the whole thing looked messy.

“I was disappointed by the whole process of this legislation,” Shipp said. “I am dismayed in this day and age that there would be an attempt like this to interfere with a woman’s right to choose, with covert legislation.”

Underneath all of the political intrigue -- real and perceived -- is a bill that could have major ramifications if it gets out of the Rules Committee and onto the full Senate floor.

Supporters of the bill say that in 2008, black women in Georgia had twice as many abortions as white women and are convinced that they are being targeted. Opponents say the bill is an attempt to mislead the public about abortions.

“This legislation addresses the issue of sex and race, and that is a faulty premise,” Shipp said. “African-American women are fully equipped to make decisions based on conversations with their family and faith leaders. This legislation has far-reaching constitutional implications. It is troublesome on a lot of different levels.”

But Catherine Davis, director of minority outreach of Georgia Right to Life, said that in 2008, nearly 19,000 black women got abortions in the state. White women accounted for 8,523 abortions during that same period.

“African-Americans account for 30 percent of the population in Georgia but make up 59 percent of the abortions,” Davis said. “The black community is being targeted by abortionists. The abortion industry wants us to believe that we have a greater need. Why should an abortion doctor be able to take a baby because it is black?”

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-poli...on-393244.html

Just wanted to update, Georgia is in the process of making it illegal for abortion practitioners to "coerce" women of colour into abortion. Because OBVIOUSLY the doctors are preying on these women, and it has nothing to do with the fact that black women have a higher rate of unwanted pregnancies, there is NO investigation as to why that is, its just automatically and conveniently assumed that its the doctors. Because god forbid they have practical solutions.

And its depressing that they're getting support from the black community who will no doubt continue to have its women ostracized as "welfare queens" when they have all the children the conservatives apparently want them to have and need assistance.