Black pro-life leader once inspired to join movement by now pro-abortion Jesse Jackson

Written and Researched by: Carole Novielli

Dolores Bernadette Grier a founder of the Association of Black Catholics against Abortion and who also sat on the board of the African American Society Against Abortion and the New York State Right To Life Committee told a newspaper that she was inspired to join the pro-life movement by Jesse Jackson.

She said her firm stance on the abortion issue was influence by the Reverend whom she heard deliver an elegant and persuasive speech on the issue at a New York Hotel in 1977.

Grier said, “After the talk, I went up and said, ‘ Rev. Jackson, I’m going to join the pro-life movement. You said the pro-life movement needed youth and color, and I am the color.”

Jackson was once a staunch pro-life advocate and according to Maafa21 he threw his principles away so he could run for president.

1970– In the 1970’s as a the head of the People United to Save Humanity, (PUSH), a Chicago based Civil Rights group, [Jesse] Jackson acknowledged that he personally abhorred abortion because he felt that only the intercession of his grandmother had prevented his mother from aborting him. He brought a pronounced religious opposition to abortion, telling a group of students, “I’m conceding that unless we put human life second only to God in our lives, we’re becoming a Sodom and Gomorrah… we have an obligation to take sex and life as a far more sacred event than we do now.”

In 1973– Jesse Jackson said, “Abortion is genocide. Anything growing is living…If you got the thrill to set the baby in motion and you don’t have the will to protect it, you’re dishonest…You try to avoid reproducing sickness. You try to avoid reproducing deformities. But you don’t try to stop reproducing and procreating human life at its best. For who knows the cure for cancer won’t come out of some mind of some Black child?” (Jet Magazine Mar 22, 1973; p. 15)

In 1974– Pro-lifers reported that a resolution in favor of a human life amendment written by Jesse Jackson would be read at their meeting. (The Milwaukee Sentinel – Jul 24, 1974)

In 1975 Jesse Jackson helped form the pro-life group, The Christian Action Council.

In 1975 Jesse Jackson joined comedian Dick Gregory in New York during the third annual “Thanksgiving for Life” convention sponsored by the National Youth Pro-Life Coalition, (a non-sectarian, non-partisan group working for “positive alternatives” to abortion, war, capital punishment, euthanasia, compulsory sterilization and “other forms of violence.”) that the nation’s pro-abortion mentality undermines the value and dignity of every human life and that “killing babies” is symptomatic of a civilization and culture which operates without sacred absolutes.

In 1975– Jesse Jackson joined Billy Graham’s wife for a constitution amendment banning abortion. Jackson and Mrs. Graham were among the signers issued by the Christian Action Council, which read in part, “A deep concern for defenseless human life, including the unborn as well as the handicapped, is a consistent element of Christian moral teaching from the days of the Apostles onward…It is not limited to any particular Christian confession or denomination.” ( Christian’s join Bishops Ban on Abortion The Milwaukee Journal – Dec 1, 1975) and (Protestant leaders back abortion plan: The Telegraph-Herald – Nov 27, 1975)

Jackson signs a document which states, “A deep concern for defenseless human life, including the unborn as well as the handicapped, is a constant element of Christian moral teaching from the days of the Apostles onward…It is not limited to any particular Christian confession or denomination.”

In 1976– Jackson stated, “I think it is a significant issue, it reflects at one level, the moral decay and ambiguity in society, I think that Whenever Human Life ceases to represent the highest value in the human sphere, the society is in trouble….at this point what the court have ruled in abortion, the legal , it almost takes away from the young man the responsibility, and from the young woman the responsibility, of the act they have engaged in. And when people begin to use the excuses like “this girl is not ready yet” it means that the law of convenience becomes the highest law, and that is a very dangerous precedent morally, even before it becomes political!” (Jesse Jackson, Press Conference USA, February 2,1976)

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In 1977– Endorsing the Hyde Amendment Jackson wrote, “I must oppose the use of federal funds for a policy of killing infants.” ” You don’t stop reproducing or procreating life at its best . For who knows that the cure for cancer won’t come out of the mind of some black child? ” He later called abortion – genocide. (The Southeast Missourian – Jul 14, 1988)

In 1977– Jesse Jackson also wrote, “Abortion is a vital issue. It does require immediate and wide attention because it really is a matter of life vs. death , because it is a matter of rights vs. morality.” ( The Milwaukee Sentinel – Jul 18, 1977 )

In 1977 Writing for the National Right to Life News, Jackson states:

“The question of “life” is The Question of the 20th century. Race and poverty are dimensions of the life question, but discussions about abortion have brought the issue into focus in a much sharper way. How we will respect and understand the nature of life itself is the over-riding moral issue, not of the Black race, but of the human race. The question of abortion confronts me in several different ways. First, although I do not profess to be a biologist, I have studied biology and know something about life from the point of view of the natural sciences. Second, I am a minister of the Gospel and therefore, feel that abortion has a religious and moral dimension that I must consider. Third, I was born out of wedlock (and against the advice that my mother received from her doctor) and therefore abortion is a personal issue for me. From my perspective, human life is the highest good, the summum bonum . Human life itself is the highest human good and God is the supreme good because He is the giver of life. That is my philosophy. Everything I do proceeds from that religious and philosophical premise.” How we respect life is the over-riding moral issue By JESSE JACKSON; Right to Life News, January 1977

” Another area that concerns me greatly, namely because I know how it has been used with regard to race, is the psycholinguistics involved in this whole issue of abortion. If something can be dehumanized through the rhetoric used to describe it, then the major battle has been won. So when American soldiers can drop bombs on Vietnam and melt the faces and hands of children into a hunk of rolling protoplasm and in their minds say they have not maimed or killed a fellow human being something terribly wrong and sick has gone on in that mind. That is why the Constitution called us three-fifths human and then whites further dehumanized us by calling us “niggers.” It was part of the dehumanizing process. The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in. order to justify that which they wanted to do and not even feel like they had done anything wrong. Those advocates of taking. life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder; they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human. Rather they talk about aborting the fetus. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified…What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?” (How we respect life is the over-riding moral issue:Right to Life News, January 1977)

1978 Jesse Jackson writes, “The pro-abortion forces say that the social conditions awaiting so many of the unborn are not good enough to live in. It is a legitimate concern, but in finding an answer in abortion they are overstepping their rights. In denying life because of social conditions , they are forcing their cynicism on others.”
( Abortion and Life, by Jesse Jackson Youngstown Vindicator – Jan 22, 1978)

1978– Rev. Jesse Jackson national director of Operation PUSH in Chicago, was among the scheduled speakers for the fifth annual March for Life, an anti-abortion rally on the Capitol steps. But Miss Nellie Grey said he was Ill and unable to attend. ( Thousand rally at Capitol in March for Life Observer-Reporter – Jan 24, 1978 )

You can get a full detail of Jesse Jackson’s sellout timeline from pro-life to pro-abortion here !

Grier asked those who support abortion, “Why are you taking that women because of her situation and resolving that problem by murder? What are you doing to her and what are you doing to yourself as a society by saying that this is the only way that you can resolve it? She is a human being, she can be talked to.”

Of Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, this black activist said, “We were not equal to white people and she didn’t think we should populate the earth, and she wanted to eliminate anybody who had color.”