Babies not the only victims of abortion

Lakisha Wilson traveled to the Preterm Abortion Clinic in Cleveland on March 21, 2014, to end her unborn child's life.

But she ended up losing far more than her unwanted baby.

Wilson's abortion provider did not properly monitor the 22-year-old after the procedure, and Wilson eventually stopped breathing. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was put on life support and pronounced dead seven days later.

Wilson was just one of many African-American women who have been victimized by abortions that went horribly wrong. African-Americans may comprise only 13.2 percent of the total U.S. population, but black women receive 29.7 percent of all abortions in the country.

"When abortions go wrong, it is more likely that women of color are the ones who end up on slabs in the morgue," wrote Cheryl Sullenger, a senior policy analyst for Operation Rescue. "In the past five years, four out of five abortion-related maternal deaths documented by Operation Rescue have involved Black or Hispanic women."

Operation Rescue released the results of a nationwide survey showing that 73 abortion clinics were closed in 2014 alone.

Sullenger, coauthor of "Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time" with Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, discussed a number of such deaths with WND.

One example: On July 20, 2012, a Chicago Planned Parenthood abortionist botched a second trimester abortion on Tonya Reaves, a 24-year-old black woman. Reaves eventually bled to death from what turned out to be a uterine perforation.

In their book, Newman and Sullenger discuss making communities "Abortion Free."

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Sullenger implored Americans to realize that abortion disproportionately affects the African-American community. She said African-Americans have a whopping 459 abortions per 1,000 births. By comparison, the abortion ratio is 132 per 1,000 for whites and 208 per 1,000 for Hispanics.

"Certainly, in order to realize Dr. King's dream for children to be 'judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,' they must first be allowed to be born," Sullenger wrote.

Young black women like Wilson and Reaves may find it too convenient to get an abortion. Sullenger reported that 79 percent of all Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are located within walking distance of black or Hispanic neighborhoods.

"Poor urban women of color are particularly vulnerable to aggressive abortion marketing," Sullenger wrote.

The author considers the large number of aborted black babies to be a form of racial discrimination. She said these abortions are standing in the way of King's dream that all men and women would be equal in America.

"If our nation is to ever truly realize Dr. King’s dream," Sullenger wrote, "that equality must be extended to the pre-born babies, regardless of race, or we have learned nothing from the struggles of the past."

Published by WND Books, "Abortion Free" goes inside the fight to shut down dirty, life-threatening clinics, including the story of how Operation Rescue peacefully closed the clinic of Kansas' notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller. The practical manual shows how to:

Find out who the abortion doctors are in your community and if they have a record or are even licensed in your state,
Get clinic workers to help you acquire evidence,
Alert the press and authorities of criminal activities,
Expose dirty and sundry clinic conditions,
Inform the public and the leaders of what is taking place, and
Help the women in need.

Newman has worked on behalf of the pre-born for more than 20 years. Through innovative new tactics, Newman's work is responsible for the closure of dozens of abortion clinics around the nation. He continues as an innovator of new tactics that have helped close abortion clinics and garner criminal prosecutions for abortionists from coast to coast.

Sullenger has been involved in the pro-life movement since 1984. She founded and directed the California Life Coalition in San Diego and worked with Newman and Operation Rescue to help close more than a dozen abortion clinics and influence at least 40 abortionists to quit the abortion business. Her sidewalk counseling ministry has saved more than 2,500 lives. Sullenger is an accomplished writer and published editorialist who co-authored "Their Blood Cries Out!" with Newman and has also written a number of other educational publications.