DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) – A prominent pro-life advocate is warning African American women about the deceptions of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Susan Ciancio
In an open letter published by Celebrate Life Magazine, Susan Ciancio, executive editor of American Life League (ALL), called on African American women to recognize the lies the NAACP is peddling in its recent resolution called “Women’s Rights to Reproductive Freedom and Health.”
The almost 1,500-word document, according to the pro-lifer, frames the murder of an unborn baby as a “right” and an exercise in “reproductive freedom.”
But nothing could be further from the truth, Ciancio argues.
She wrote:
[I]f the NAACP truly cared about you, it would explain the reality of your child’s creation — that a baby is a human being from the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg. And instead of encouraging you to kill your offspring, it would help provide the tools you need so you can raise that baby. It would direct you to pro-life pregnancy centers that offer physical and material assistance and that even provide shelter when needed.
Ciancio says word needs to get out about the free help available to women across the United States both during and after pregnancy. In a phone conversation with Church Militant, she pointed out that many people do not know that pro-life pregnancy centers far out number Planned Parenthood locations.
She clarified:
While there are approximately 600 Planned Parenthood abortuaries throughout the U.S., there are 2,700 pro-life pregnancy centers. Many of these support women not only during pregnancy, but after the baby’s birth, as well. The number of the pro-life centers argues against the common criticism by pro-aborts that pro-lifers only care about babies before they are born.
The NAACP wants women to see abortion as the solution and not be informed about other options to save the baby and support the mother, she said.
Maafa 21 – Black Genocide in 21st Century America – full documentary
At the heart of her missive is the plea to consider the life — and the rights — of the baby.
She explained:
The NAACP resolution goes on to describe reproductive rights as “the composite of human rights that address matters of sexual and reproductive health.” Yet it does not address the fact that babies are human, too, and have human rights, as well.
It then asserts that “the NAACP opposes legislation in every state, the District of Columbia, and all territories that seek to undermine the fundamental right to abortion.”
Let me be clear. There is no right to abortion. In every circumstance, abortion ends in the death of an innocent baby, who has just been stripped of his human rights.
She also exposes the duplicity of the NAACP in touting a long list of supposed benefits of abortion like “financial security and social advancement” while omitting the devastating emotional consequences.
She writes: “Abortion regret is real. As Project Rachel — a post-abortive healing ministry — explains, abortion ‘can form a hole in one’s heart, a hole so deep that sometimes it seems nothing can fill the emptiness.'”
Ciancio, who is also executive editor of ALL’s Culture of Life Studies Program — a pre-K-12 Catholic pro-life education curriculum — notes that the NAACP’s resolution fails to mention how minority neighborhoods are targeted by the abortion industry.
In her letter, she points to statistics on the Protecting Black Life website that reveal “79% of [Planned Parenthood’s] surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of African American or Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods.”
The NAACP also omits any mention of the disproportionately high number of Black babies murdered by abortion.
Ciancio writes, “The Centers for Disease Control’s latest Abortion Surveillance Report found that 41.5% of abortions in the U.S. are committed on black babies. It also found that ‘in 2021 compared with white women, abortion rates and ratios were 4.5 and 4.3 times higher among black women.'”
Black Pioneer for Life
An African American woman the American Life League is celebrating this Black History month, and whom Ciancio foregrounds in her letter, is Mildred Fay Jefferson (1926-2010).
She was a brilliant doctor and the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School. As a doctor, dedicated to the Hippocratic Oath, she knew that all preborn babies are alive and deserve a chance to be born, and she spent her life advocating for the vulnerable.
National Right to Life Remembers Dr. Mildred Jefferson
At a National Right to Life Committee convention in 1976, Jefferson stated,
We want to return human affection to such an extent that no mother, no woman, no matter how extreme her economic circumstances, no matter how extreme the difficulties of her life, would not be willing to use that as an excuse or reason for getting rid of the child that she is carrying.
Jefferson’s arguments for life were so eloquent and persuasive that they managed to convert Ronald Reagan from a pro-choice to a pro-life stance. He wrote to her in a letter, “You have made it irrefutably clear that an abortion is the taking of a human life. I am grateful to you.”
The Bottom Line
The NAACP ends its resolution saying “the [Association] opposes legislation in every state, the District of Columbia, and all territories that seek to undermine the fundamental right to abortion and any other reproductive, civil, and human right.”
Ciancio ends her letter countering, “Your beautiful child has a right to life. Organizations like the NAACP want to make you believe that you cannot handle a baby; pro-life organizations want to show you how you can handle your baby.”
For more information about how to support the American Life League and its educational publications or learn more about pro-life pregnancy centers, contact Ciancio at sciancio@all.org.
