In my most recent article here at Live Action, I told you about the vital role of black history in the pro-life movement. Black history is important both for education and for laying the legal groundwork for ending abortion, but the role of African-Americans is not at all limited to history. The outstanding leadership of pro-life black Americans has now taken a primary role in educating America about the dignity and value of every unborn child. One example of this is the Too Many Aborted awareness campaign, an initiative of The Radiance Foundation, led by Ryan Bomberger, and Issues 4 Life Foundation, led by Walter Hoye II.
The Too Many Aborted awareness campaign has stirred up controversy in Georgia and in other communities by placing billboards that educate black communities about the tragic impact of abortion which has arguably hit African-Americans the hardest. Their latest billboard campaign emphasizes that “Fatherhood begins in the womb.”
Abortion, no matter the race, is a tragic loss of beauty and potential that kills over 1.2 million innocent human lives each year. The abortion industry has created a culture of abandonment. Responsibility has become someone else’s concern, and death the solution to this serious character flaw. Men have been empowered by Roe v. Wade to abandon their primary responsibility–protecting. They’ve either chosen to run away from their role or have been forced out by a brand of liberal feminism that spews gender animus in an effort to elevate women. No one is elevated by 41% of all U.S. children being born to unmarried mothers. In the black community, 72.3% of all children are born in homes without fathers (compared to 35.7% of white children). Fatherlessness is epidemic in our culture.
Along with the troubling statistics of fatherlessness, Too Many Aborted’s Fatherhood campaign shares the positive message that to be pro-life is to be pro-fatherhood, and to be pr0-fatherhood is to be both pro-life and pro-woman. All of these issues are intimately related.
The ideal is that children are born following marriage. The reality is that we’ve got a lot of healing, education, and mentoring to happen to get there. So even if marriage is not chosen, children STILL need their fathers!
Ryan Bomberger himself was once thought to be “black and unwanted“. Conceived in rape, he became one of thirteen children to loving adoptive parents who brought him up to understand his own value and dignity. One does not have to be a child conceived in rape to be “unwanted” in today’s world. Ryan Bomberger’s life and mission serves as an example to each of us that no matter what the world may think of us, we are not commodities. We each have value far above even what we ourselves can grasp. As The Radiance Foundation website says:
The beauty of Hope and Purpose is that each and every one of us can find it. Sometimes, we just need someone to show us where to look.
As Too Many Aborted‘s new Fatherhood campaign launches, we have every reason to expect that all who see them will be given one more reason to understand that each of us has purpose, that each of us truly does have hope and that there is beauty in both.
