Emory University has cancelled a webinar on “abortion as a black issue” featuring African American pro-life speaker Toni McFadden after protests by pro-abortion feminists at the university who claim such a debate constitutes “absolute violence” against women.
Emory Medical Students for Life (EMSFL), a pro-life group on campus, announced the November 2 webinar discussion last week, saying they “welcome all points of view to listen and discuss with us” but the invitation met with outrage from a group identifying itself as “Black women at Emory University School of Medicine” who called for the event’s cancellation.
“We are at a point in our nation’s history where waves of injustice and violent discrimination tactics against Black people are on full display, and we recognize that this pattern of ideology and systemic oppression is not unique to this moment in history,” the women wrote in an October 29 letter to “Emory University School of Medicine Community.”
Asserting that American-borne racism “continues to thrive through modern social and institutionalized injustice,” the women insist that they will “not allow anyone in our sphere of influence, including Emory Medical Students for Life, to perpetuate this sadistic, unjust, and detrimental behavior.”
In response to the letter, the deans of the medical school in charge of students — Erica Brownfield and Bill Eley — asked that the talk be delayed until after the elections, according to emails obtained by Breitbart News.
In their protest letter, the Emory feminists insisted that pro-life groups target the lives and livelihood of Black women and thus have no right to speak.
The Left's radical pro-abortion agenda is hopelessly out of touch with the hearts and values of working class Americans. https://t.co/OVIGGj0OLC
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 20, 2020
“The malevolent falsehoods professed by pro-life groups such as Emory Medical Students for Life, that claim to be scientific, empirically based, secular, and apolitical, have failed on all fronts, and as a result have both directly and indirectly targeted the lives and livelihood of Black women,” the women stated.
While speaking of “the hugely disproportionate rates of Black maternal and infant mortality,” the women made no mention of the hugely disproportionate rate of abortions performed on black babies, something that Ms. McFadden undoubtedly intended to address in her discussion. Currently, black babies in the United States are aborted at nearly four times the rate of white babies, leading some African American leaders to speak of a “black genocide” through abortion.
“The litany of injustices is boundless, but a direct line can be traced from these depredations and deprivations to today’s ‘pro-life’ movement,” the women’s letter declared, “which seeks to shutter Planned Parenthood (and other) clinics, which millions of Black women rely on for medical care and family planning, including but certainly not limited to abortion.”
“Reproductive oppression is defined as the control and exploitation of women, girls, and individuals through women’s bodies, sexuality, labor, and reproduction,” the letter insisted. “Through medical experimentation, forced reproduction and forced sterilization, as well as current disparities in access to reproductive healthcare, it is clear that Black women have been the primary and sustained target of reproductive oppression in the context of American history.”
A debate on abortion as a black issue would allow “the insidious arm of white supremacy to slither in and tell affected people that it knows better than they do,” the letter stated. “It is nothing short of absolute violence that medical institutions continue to allow a ‘debate’ to be had about the bodies of women, especially those of Black women.”
“How can Medical Students for Life purport to be advocates and protectors of human life when they so egregiously seek to deprive women, especially Black women, of essential healthcare services?” it asked.
Big money abortion giants rejoice over Kamala Harris pick. https://t.co/lPuGBzgtrB
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 13, 2020
In calling for the event to be cancelled, the women insisted that free speech itself is code for white supremacy.
“Free speech has always, and continues to be, used to protect whiteness and white supremacist narratives,” they insisted. “It has always been used against Black and brown communities to silence them and to punish them for speaking truth to power.”
We “strike down the notion that medical students or medical professionals have the right to determine what decisions women should make regarding their own health,” they concluded.
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