Black pro-lifers warn against Virginia abortion proposal

Late last month about 50 people filed into Mount Olivet Church in Richmond, Va., on a Saturday morning. But they were not there for a celebration or service. Instead, they gathered at the predominantly black church for a prayer breakfast to discuss the growing threat unborn babies face in the state. The event’s advertised tagline: “Defending life to restore the disappearing black family.”

In November, Virginia voters will consider a pro-abortion constitutional amendment that would strip away the state’s few remaining pro-life protections. The Frederick Douglass Freedom Alliance of Virginia and the Douglass Leadership Institute coordinated last month’s breakfast, hosted by black pastors, to explain to attendees that the amendment would remove safeguards that protect women and their unborn babies.

Many voters do not understand exactly what passing the amendment would do, said attendee Martin Brown. “It’s like inviting the Grim Reaper into your home and giving him the legal right to live in your home,” Brown said.

The amendment would enshrine the right to abortion into the state constitution and solidify Virginia’s position as one of the least protective states for unborn babies in the Southeast. In Virginia, constitutional amendments have to pass the General Assembly twice before they appear on ballots. State lawmakers approved the item in 2025 and again earlier this year.

Brown, who worked in various roles under four governors over the last 30 years and helped establish a pregnancy resource center in Richmond in the early 2000s, said even he did not realize the amendment was at the final stage of approval. “I was not aware that this was the last time we had to vote,” said Brown. “There is no do-over or second chance next year.”

As Virginia pro-life groups ramp up their efforts to inform voters about the amendment before November, some organizations are building the case for black Virginians and Christians to take a firm stance to defend unborn babies. They say abortion disproportionately harms the black community and that it is time for Virginia voters to recognize abortion as a moral issue, not a political one.

In April, Virginia’s Founding Freedoms Law Center filed a lawsuit against the amendment, saying the ballot language does not inform voters that it would override existing parental consent laws and safety regulations for abortion facilities. It would also remove current protections that require an abortionist to obtain consensus from two other medical providers before performing a third-trimester abortion.

“When this particular amendment popped up in Virginia, we knew we had to do something about it immediately,” said J.R. Gurley, a pastor in Newport News and the Virginia ambassador for the Frederick Douglass Freedom Alliance. The group is a national organization named for abolitionist Frederick Douglass that promotes biblical and conservative values, including pro-life and pro-family causes.

Gurley and other members of the group decided to host community panel discussions about the amendment and who it would most affect. “Every single policy should be evaluated by its outcome,” Gurley said. “And if a policy disproportionately affects one demographic group, we should at least be honest enough to acknowledge that reality and then simply ask why.”

Even if a Virginia voter is aware of how the abortion amendment would remove protections for unborn babies, Gurley said many are unaware that black babies are at a greater risk of abortion. In 2022, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published national abortion data, black women had the highest abortion rate of any race.

That year, about 24.4 abortions occurred per 1,000 black women aged 15-44, more than four times the rate of white women. In Virginia in 2022, about 32% of all abortions were performed on black women, though 2024 numbers show only 18% of the state population was black.

“It’s entirely reasonable to ask whether this amendment will further reduce the number of black children born in Virginia,” Gurley said. “Anyone who is looking at this with one eye open and one eye closed can see in the future and say, ‘Absolutely.’”

Gurley says high abortion rates in the black community began nearly 100 years ago with the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger. In 1939, Sanger started the “Negro Project” as a way to expand birth control use among black people, especially those in lower-income regions. But pro-lifers say that initiative quickly expanded from contraception to abortion, and historians have pointed to Sanger’s support of eugenics as evidence of the project’s true intentions.

“We discuss disparities in education. We discuss disparities in healthcare. We discuss disparities in the criminal justice system,” Gurley said. “We discuss disparities everywhere, so why would we suddenly stop caring about outcomes when it comes to unborn children?”

Gurley believes that one reason pro-abortion policies have gained so much traction in Virginia is because many voters view abortion as a political topic rather than a moral issue. In the 2025 election, every county and city in the state shifted toward the Democrat Party. The new Democrat-controlled General Assembly then gave the current pro-abortion amendment its second stamp of approval.

Black voters also overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates in the election. Bishop Garland Hunt, who spoke at last month’s breakfast, says the Democratic Party’s focus on human rights issues draws in many black voters. “That does resonate with black people because they feel like it’s a certain freedom that we should fight for,” he said. “We needed freedom from slavery. Now we need freedom for a woman to be able to choose whether to go through with a baby or to terminate the pregnancy.”

Hunt is the president of the Douglass Leadership Institute, which aims to develop Christian leaders within minority communities. He and Gurley believe that, if more people understood the real effects of sweeping pro-abortion policies, they would be more likely to vote against pro-abortion laws regardless of political affiliation. Both are concerned that Christians have allowed political allegiance to override biblical truth about abortion. “Many people have just put it aside as a political issue,” Hunt said. “But it is vitally important to the Lord.”

Many pastors try not to discuss politics from the pulpit, Hunt noted. But when it comes to abortion, he believes Christians have a biblical mandate to speak out against the killing of unborn babies. The group hopes that last month’s event and future panel discussions will equip pastors and church leaders to discuss the constitutional amendment with their congregations.

“Our goal is transforming their minds and their hearts to Christ Jesus,” Hunt said. “If we can transform the mind and transform the thinking, then they will automatically vote the right way.”

Back in Virginia, Martin Brown said the breakfast meeting gave him a renewed sense of urgency to speak up for the unborn. “I’m trying to do my small part in letting others know and informing other influencers, pastors, church leaders, just so they get the word out,” he said. “My prayer is that we’re able to defeat this.”