‘Pro-life’ must be canceled because it’s ‘racist,’ Rolling Stone writer says
A senior writer of Rolling Stone magazine has argued that the word pro-life should be canceled because he believes it's rife with racism.
“The moniker ‘pro-life,’ so often used in the service of not just misogyny but also racism, should be retired right along with Aunt Jemima and the Redskins’ team name,” Rolling Stone senior writer Jamil Smith wrote on Twitter Wednesday, replying to a post by the Rev. William J. Barber II, a progressive Protestant minister and political activist.
“Ironically, the governors most willing to watch their citizens die are the ones who have used ‘pro-life’ rhetoric to compel people of faith to support the narrow interests of corporate greed & white political power,” Barber had tweeted. “COVID has revealed how the ‘pro-life’ movement is killing us.”
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Smith asserted that pro-life should be retired, much like the name "Redskins," after the Washington Redskins team announced it would be changing its name.
The accusation that the word pro-life is racist or misogynist conflicts with how many others view the pro-abortion movement and Planned Parenthood in particular, including rapper Kanye West, and NFL player, author and pro-life advocate, Benjamin Watson.
Earlier this month, West blasted the nation's largest abortion provider, saying it was created by "white supremacists to do the devil's work."
“I am pro-life because I’m following the word of the Bible," he added in an interview with Forbes magazine.
Planned Parenthood, which was started by Margaret Sanger, a known racist and advocate for eugenics, said West's comments were "offensive and infantilizing," opining that the real threat to black people is the "anti-abortion opposition."
In July, Brian Fisher, the president of Human Coalition and Human Coalition Action, wrote in an op-ed for The Christian Post, “We need to talk about the systemic racism of the abortion industry and its devastation of the Black family unit in America.”
“Abortion terminates a pre-born child in the womb — the deliberate killing of a human life,” Fisher wrote. “Abortion has devastating consequences for everyone involved; not only does abortion directly slaughter an innocent, pre-born life, but it also harms and exploits vulnerable women and leaves lasting mental, emotional and familial scars. Abortion is an evil that, like racism, attacks the dignity of the human being. And abortion, like segregation, disproportionately impacts black communities.”
Fisher shared that black women experience the highest abortion rate in the country, with 474 abortions of Black babies for every 1,000 live births. “Despite making up only 13% of the female population, black women receive 36% of all abortions. As even the pro-abortion Guttmacher institute reports, black women are five times more likely than white women to get an abortion. Statistically, that means that abortion has ended the lives of approximately 19 million black babies since 1973 alone.”
In 2016, Watson shared his views on abortion and how it factored into race relations in America.
“I do know that blacks kind of represent a large portion of the abortions, and I do know that honestly, the whole idea with Planned Parenthood and Sanger in the past was to exterminate blacks, and it’s kind of ironic that it’s working,” Watson, the author of the book Under Our Skin, said in an hour-long interview for the San Diego-based Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center’s blog interview series. “We [as minorities] support candidates, and overwhelmingly support the idea of having Planned Parenthood and the like, and yet, that is why she created it.”
Watson lamented that many minority communities have bought into the abortion agenda and suggested that black and Hispanic pregnant teens are encouraged to get abortions rather than keep their babies.
“… It seems to be something that is really pushed on minorities and provided to minorities especially as something that they should do. In the public, it seems to be painted that when minorities get pregnant they need to get abortions, especially when it comes to teen pregnancy.”
