The tragedy of missing black teens

Here’s a Washington Post headline from yesterday: “Black teens are reported missing—and far too few people notice.” I thought for a moment the Post had turned pro life, because one of the most underreported stories of recent decades is how about 19 million African-American babies have been killed by abortion since 1973.

The Post was actually—and rightly—concerned that 21 people reported missing in the District of Columbia in January are still missing, and 10 of them are teenage girls, including five black girls close in physical description and age: 14, 15, and 16 years old. One concern: that they are being forced into prostitution.

That’s terrible. Also terrible are these gruesome statistics: In the United States, on average, we kill 900 black babies every day. For every 1,000 live births, African-American women have 420 abortions. About 39 million Americans are black, so aside from abortion, the African-American population would be almost 50 percent larger.

For every 1,000 live births, African-American women have 420 abortions.

A paragraph from the Post article: “Derrica Wilson, co-founder and chief executive of the Black and Missing Foundation, said that people of color account for 40 percent of all missing people in the country.” That’s more true than she may know. About 36 percent of all the babies aborted in the United States are black (and 19 percent are Hispanic).

The abortion rate for black women is almost four times that of white women, and it’s no secret that the racism involved in Planned Parenthood’s founding—pioneers spoke of their “Negro Project”—is still evident in the location of Planned Parenthood facilities and the marketing of abortion within the black community.

Wilson said, “Everyone should be angry at this happening in our community, but our community needs to step up and take action.” True, and some are, including the Radiance Foundation, or see my interview with the foundation’s co-founders Ryan Scott and Bethany Bomberger.

Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., quotes her uncle as saying, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” She added, “How can the ‘Dream’ survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.”

I hope those missing teens are found and saved. I also pray The Washington Post story will multiply the missing by a million each and discuss the abortion tragedy. But it seems that Post editors don’t see it that way. Yesterday they put a scare headline on a story: “Defunding Planned Parenthood would lead to thousands more birth, CBO says.” The horror!