Anti-Abortion Activists Eye Inner Cities
Sunday August 20, 2006 5:31 PM
By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - On a street once known as Murder Row, a teen center founded to steer youths away from drugs and crime has become an outpost in another crusade - a nationwide push by anti-abortion activists to expand their foothold in heavily black and Hispanic inner cities.
The campaign involves crisis pregnancy centers, whose counselors seek to dissuade women with unplanned pregnancies from having abortions. There are more than 2,300 centers across America, yet relatively few in inner cities where abortion rates are typically highest.
Now the two largest networks - Care Net and Heartbeat International - have launched initiatives to change that equation. Their sometimes awkward efforts rely on unlikely alliances, as an anti-abortion movement led mostly by conservative, white Republicans interacts with overwhelmingly Democratic, black communities.
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``These predatory fanatics don't lift a finger to help the children who are born unwanted and unplanned,'' said Jatrice Martel Gaiter, head of the Washington-area Planned Parenthood chapter.
``In these centers of deception, they leave young parents at best with a box of Pampers and a prayer,'' she said. ``They leave people even more vulnerable than when they walked through the door, without any information about how to avoid a future unintended pregnancy.''
Sure they do: they say don't have sex until you're married or this is the consequence!
Most of the centers are rural or suburban. The quest to open more in inner cities is fueled by statistics showing that nearly 90 percent of women who get abortions live in urban areas, and the majority are poor.
That's interesting. It sure makes a lie out of the "87% of US Counties don't have abortion providers"-- that's not where the demand is!
Though relatively few blacks play prominent roles in the anti-abortion movement, national polls indicate that qualms about abortion are as widespread among blacks as among whites.
(...)
Another key, she said, is recruiting local volunteers so the counseling staff isn't overwhelmingly white. ``We want people to come in and see someone who looks like them,'' Epps said. ``We can't charge into a community and say, 'We're your savior.'''
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