The downfall of the abortion business is in sight when the Black and Latino Christian communities not only join the pro-life movement but lead it. We call this anticipated surge, the Third Wave.

The first wave of the pregnancy help movement was primarily a Catholic effort arising in the late 60’s. As abortion “rights” emerged, Catholic doctors, ethicists, and lay people opened educational offices to explain fetal development. Soon they also provided “emergency pregnancy services” to those at risk for abortion.

In the early 80’s, the second wave rushed in as Evangelical Christians flooded the cause. One tributary formed in the late 70’s when Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop introduced to the Evangelical community a book and film series called Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Evangelicals awakened to abortion as the diminution of human life. They rushed in to write, preach, and start “crisis pregnancy centers.”

In the convergence, Heartbeat International emerged as the one place where Catholics and Evangelicals would labor side by side. Acknowledging real and important differences, we nonetheless agreed on the call of God: “Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4).

A few civil rights activists from the 60’s saw the racism of Planned Parenthood and called abortion “Black genocide.” Some Black pastors have faithfully exposed that truth over the years. Now we are on the cusp of the Third Wave. We have inspiring models of minority-led pregnancy help centers. These are the Wave Makers among us!

Presently, America’s pregnancy help centers are set up in predominantly white, suburban, and small-town communities. This reflects the demographics of our current movement. But long ago, Planned Parenthood explicitly identified its profit centers: “young women, low-income women, and women of color” (Planned Parenthood Plan of Action, 1997). Studies show that 62.5% of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in cities where Blacks represent a higher percentage of the population compared to the overall population of the state. (LifeIssues.org/connector/display.asp?page=05oct.htm)

Black women, who represent 12% of the female population, suffer 36% of all abortions. Latina women represent 13% of the female population but suffer another 20% of all abortions. Together, they suffer 56% of all abortions yet they represent only 25% of our nation’s population.

Rev. Clenard Childress, Northeast Region President of the Life Education And Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N.), explains the numbers: “The abortion industry kills as many Black people every four days as the Klan killed in 150 years. Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more Blacks than AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and violent crime combined.”

Since those who profit in shedding innocent blood concentrate on Black and Latino neighborhoods, these abortionists cannot survive without the silent approval of the Black and Latino pastors and churches in those neighborhoods. Only as the pregnancy help movement penetrates the heart of our urban churches, producing pregnancy help clinics there, can we expect further significant national progress. Therefore, Heartbeat is committed to urban initiatives.

Heartbeat has provided funds and expertise to pregnancy help centers in abortion-plagued cities like Miami, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh. We are calling our affiliates to “go urban,” increasing their service in metropolitan areas as they plan expansion. We have asked Black and Latino Christians already working in our affiliate centers to boldly step up to national leadership. Our recent training, Heartbeat’s Annual Conference in Virginia, was largely planned with our minority leadership team. They represent the future growth and ultimate victory of our mission.

It appears that God has designed things so that only together – Black, White, Latino, male and female, Catholic and Protestant – are we to carry the day. Through hard work, generous giving, and earnest prayer, let us make the face of our movement reflect the body of Christ, and altogether prove, “Mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!” (Psalm 93:4).