Contact: Walter B. Hoye II, Issues4life Foundation, 510-225-4055 ext. 4, life@issues4life.org

UNION CITY, Calif., August 18 /Standard Newswire/ -- Walter Hoye, President and Founder of the Issues4Life Foundation responds to Melissa Gilliam's article entitled "Health-Care Inequality Is Key In Abortion Rates", posted Sunday, August 10th, 2008 and published by The Philadelphia Inquirer.(1) Melissa Gilliam is an associate professor of obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Chicago, Director of the fellowship in family planning at the University of Chicago and Chairwoman of the Alan Guttmacher Institute Board of Directors. According to Mr. Hoye, Melissa Gilliam, associate professor of obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Chicago, appears to miss or ignore the fact that the bodies of unborn children, babies, are being dismembered, sucked down tubes into biohazardous waste bags and stabbed with scissors in the back of their heads so that their brains can be sucked out of their skulls while in the wombs of their mothers.

Visibly stunned by the gruesome reality of abortion, Mr. Hoye continues by saying, "and abortion in the African-American community is justified because Black women's 'higher unintended pregnancy rates reflect the particular difficulties that many women in minority communities face in accessing high-quality contraceptive services and using their methods of birth control consistently and effectively over long periods of time?'"(2)

Expressing his exasperation, Mr. Hoye says: "I am desperately struggling trying to believe that Melissa Gilliam, a highly educated Black woman who has clearly benefited from the struggles of Black American men and women in the past, does not understand, know or believe that an individual born of a human father and a human mother is, by nature, by definition, by empirical scientific evidence, regardless of skin color, race, religion, intelligence, health or socio-economic circumstances, or stage of human development, a human being and consequently a person."

Reflecting on the horrific impact of abortion in the African-American community (447,700 lives lost in 2005 alone )(3) and the staggering numbers surround legally induced abortion in the United States (1.21 million lives lost in 2005 alone)(4), Mr. Hoye continues by asking the following questions:

Does Chairwoman Gilliam really believe that "a long history of discrimination; lack of access to high-quality, affordable health care; too few educational and professional opportunities; unequal access to safe, clean neighborhoods; and, for some African Americans, a lingering mistrust of the medical community" is the reason why a woman goes into an abortion clinic to kill her "unintended" baby?

Does Doctor Gilliam really believe that Black women today are "stretched so thin," thinner in fact than the Black women who, facing horrors still unheard and unhealed, gave birth to their children while slaves from the 16th to 18th century in the United States of America?

Does Director Gilliam really believe that after Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), with the majority of their facilities in minority communities, has for decades encouraged premarital sex (e.g. http://www.teenwire.com), has inundated the Black community with contraceptives beginning with Margaret Sanger's 1939-1940 racist Negro Project(5) to eliminate Blacks, has received over $4 billion of federal Title X and Medicaid funds(6) for their family planning of Black Americans and has doubled "excess of revenue over expenses" funds from $55.7 million in 2005 to $112 million in 2006(7), that "the strong body of evidence" shows that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are a waste of money?

Mr. Hoye says, "I just do not believe Melissa Gilliam believes these things to be true."

The Issues4Life Foundation believes that Black men and women can live chaste lives. Mr. Hoye says, even the CDC acknowledges that abstinence "... MIGHT help reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and the number of legal induced abortions in the United States.(8)" In another report, the CDC says that "... the MOST effective methods for preventing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are those that protect against exposure to HIV. Preventive behaviors include sexual abstinence...(9)"

When asked what can African-American leadership do to end abortion, Mr. Hoye says: "African-American leadership must not rely on sex education or the government to abolish abortion. Instead the African-American leadership must understand that THE KEY to serving this present age is meeting the physical and spiritual needs of women and children in the name of Jesus Christ and working together with those who, in the words of Day Gardner (a Black woman who is President of the National Black Pro-Life Union), understand that: 'The consequences or circumstances a young woman may face with an unplanned pregnancy need not include the cruel and vicious killing of her child.(10)'"

(1) Visit: www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080811_Health-care_inequality_is_key_in_abortion_rates.html?adString=inq.currents/currents;!category=currents;&randomOrd=081208043820  (accessed August 2008)

(2) "Abortion and Women of Color: The Bigger Picture", Guttmacher Policy Review, Summer 2008, Volume 11, Number 3, www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/11/3/gpr110302.html, (accessed August 2008)

(3) "Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States", Alan Guttmacher Institute, www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html (Accessed August 2008)

(4) Ibid.

(5) Read "The Negro Project: Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Plan for Black Americans" By Tanya L. Green (www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=1466&department=CWA&categoryid=life) (accessed August 2008)

(6) Visit: defundplannedparenthood.org (accessed August 2008)

(7) Read: "Planned Parenthood Abortion Business Makes $1 Billion Income for First Time" (www.issues4life.org/pdfs/news_20080328.pdf  and Read: "African-American Abortion: Pro Choice, Infanticide, Or Genocide?" by Brad Lena (www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=657) (both accessed August 2008)

(8) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5609a1.htm (accessed August 2008)

(9) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00054952.htm (accessed August 12, 2008)

(10) Visit: www.nationalblackprolifeunion.com (accessed August 2008)