By Robert Thibodeaux, Community Voices 

As I often do while traveling, I read the online version of the Savage Pacer. I highly recommend the site as it sometimes contains information that is highlighted on the Web site that you might otherwise miss when reading the paper.

Robert Thibodeaux

This Sunday, I glanced to see an interesting notice in the “Latest Posts” section on the Web site: “NOW meeting and V-Day video.” I decided to take a look and see what it was about.

V-Day, according to the notice is: “an international movement to stop violence against women and girls.” And this is what got my attention, or shall I say, made my irony meter go off the scale: NOW is dedicated, according to their own Web site, to “Protect our right to abortion.”

I had just finished reading two civil rights articles. One was “Letter from a Birmingham jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other was a speech given by Alveda King, niece of Dr. King. I was reminded that there was a time when many American believed it was their right to treat another human being as their property, to be used, kept, worked or discarded as they chose. It was wrong then and the way we treat the unborn is equally wrong. As she told a packed House chamber, “You know, they're like a slave in the womb of a mom. The mom's deciding whether they will live or die. It's civil rights.”

But as with many of the social issues affecting this country, we in the mostly white suburbs, like the land owners of the Old South, can sit back and talk about our economic needs and our rights. According to the Center for Disease Control, about 13 percent of the women in America are black, yet they account for over one-third (35 percent) of all abortions. No wonder many in the community are concerned. As Dr. King once said of the struggle for freedom, “(A man) cannot win if he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for personal comfort and safety."

Sadly, this appears to be the leading reason that women are choosing abortion, for financial or lifestyle concerns. Despite the political hype around these issues, women are not getting abortions because they have been abused. They are doing it because they feel they cannot bear the burden of another child. This points to a failing on all sides of the political spectrum. I know that many organizations are dedicated to assisting women with unplanned pregnancies or unplanned financial burdens due to pregnancy. Either the information is not reaching these women or they are somehow rejecting the help. This is a reminder that more must be done to inform and assist these women and also provide the means necessary to these organizations to continue their work.

Likewise, I know a good deal of our tax money is spent on social programs. If we can find money to run ads to tell people not to smoke to help us breath better, surely some money can be found to help an unborn child take its first breath. We have groups dedicated to stopping violence against women, and I agree that things should be done to assist this cause. But in addition to assisting thousands of women, they acknowledge we should also be helping the millions of unborn women they do not.

As Ms. King said: “A woman has a right to choose what she does with her body, of course she does. But I had to admit right then that baby was not my body," she said. "I did not have the right to kill another person, and so I admitted that, and as soon as I admitted that things began to change for me."

I have no doubt that just as with slavery and segregation, many people of good heart see the great injustice here. But as Dr. King also reminded us, “Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but groups are more immoral than individuals.”

But he did not give up, and like Dr. King, I hope that “Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”

So I hope that maybe I can change a few hearts, a few minds and maybe they can change those around them and then, help save lives, “two at a time.”

 (Robert Thibodeaux is one of 10 people in the Savage community who write for Community Voices. This column features a different writer each week and is one of several opinion and commentary pieces appearing regularly in this newspaper.)