http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.abortion25mar25,0,6064142.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlinesAbortion opponents seeking black converts
By Stephanie Simon
Originally published March 25, 2007
DALLAS // Anti-abortion activists are reaching aggressively to draw more blacks into their movement, targeting urban communities that they have long considered hostile turf.
They are opening crisis pregnancy centers in minority neighborhoods, establishing partnerships with black pastors and distributing provocative leaflets to raise suspicion about Planned Parenthood, a longtime provider of reproductive health care and abortions in inner cities.
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Liberal groups that support abortion rights - most prominently Planned Parenthood - have spent years building ties with black churches and providing subsidized health care, such as pap smears and AIDS tests, to poor urban communities.
By contrast, the national anti-abortion movement has largely ignored the inner city. Its energy, funds and volunteers come mostly from "white, suburban, small-town, red-state America," said the Rev. John Ensor, who runs Heartbeat's Urban Initiative.
That legacy has sown indifference and mistrust.
"When you go to African-American communities - even myself, an African-American woman - you'll find they don't trust pro-life people," said Lillie Epps, a vice president of Care Net, which runs more than 1,000 suburban crisis pregnancy centers. "They look at us as a group who cares very little about what's going on in the inner city, the poverty and all the other issues."
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