Letters to the Editor

Letting poor babies die is shameful

8/11/2013

Your editorial asks: “So how do we label letting poor babies die?” The answer you gave included “Social Darwinism,” “colossal stupidity,” and “man’s inhumanity to man.”

I have another: women’s rights. A good number of Americans and powerful lobbies advocate letting poor babies die in the guise of women’s rights.

Your disgust at infant mortality in Ohio is justifiable, and Ohio Right to Life shares your outrage. But Ohioans need to know the full story.

African-American babies face not only the alarmingly disproportionate threat of infant mortality, but also the alarmingly disproportionate threat of abortion. Approximately 40 percent of abortions are performed on black women, even though they make up fewer than 10 percent of the state’s population.

Impoverished children also face a frighteningly disproportionate threat of abortion: 40 percent of abortions take place on women whose income is below the federal poverty level, even though they make up 14.6 percent of all women.

A hundred years ago, it was popular to use Social Darwinism and negative eugenics to justify abortion on the most vulnerable women and children in America. Today, the abortion lobbies of Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio use facades such as “women’s rights and health” to gloss over the reality of what they are doing to our neighbors.

They say they’re looking out for the poor, but we know they’re eliminating the poor through abortion.

MICHAEL GONIDAKIS

President Ohio Right to Life Columbus