Star Parker: Slavery Was, As Abortion is, a Crime Against Humanity

Testimony from Star Parker
Hearing on H.R. 490, the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017
For Submission to the Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice

My name is Star Parker. I am the founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education based here in Washington, DC and I want to thank you Mr. Chairman for this opportunity to declare my support of H.R. 490, the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017.

The abortion industry all across America, and in particularly in our most distressed communities, is preying on our nation’s most vulnerable, brutally dismembering their offspring: and yet there is no federal protection that the women considering abortion receive full disclosure about the human being growing within her.

Recently a famous rapper name Nicki Minaj told Rolling Stone magazine that an abortion of her youth still haunts her: a heart wrenching story being told by many thousands of distraught men and women in hundreds of communities all across our great country.

I was one such woman: when years ago, lost in sexual recklessness, had four abortions; without any counsel nor information from the abortion providers about the distinct humanity of the life that was
growing within me.

I heard all the propaganda of the abortion peddlers, in school, in media, from community and political leaders – yet I heard nothing of infant development in the womb nor any information about their morality.

Perhaps then, one might argue that little was known about the development or mortality of an embryo or fetus: very few instruments were available to medically or scientifically detect heartbeat.

But today, due to modern technology, this is not an argument that can be made, in particular with the advent of ultrasound where we can now hear and measure a heartbeat within the womb.

Need for H.R. 490, the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017

To illustrate the humanity of the life in a womb and express the great need for this Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017, H.R. 490, I want to share stories I have heard over and over again in State after State about the impact of abortion on their personal lives.

1. Texas: This man had deep regret of an abortion in his youth after discovery of information on fetal development upon his wife’s first pregnancy and he ended up in counseling for depression. When he saw the heartbeat of their expectant offspring on sonogram, his heart rushed with panic of the abortion he had a decade earlier with a girlfriend.

2. North Carolina: This couple talked themselves into an abortion for financial reasons and then couldn’t look at each other again after thinking about fetal development and thus ended their marriage.

3. Alaska: This pastor found out his minor daughter had had an abortion without consent after she was in agonizing pain in that she was carrying twins and the abortionist only killed one. The survivor of this botched abortion is now an adult and speaking out against abortion.

Interestingly and for the record, all three of these stories were told to me by men.

Implorations for Consideration

Let’s imagine if not only for a second, the millions of men and women, all across our country that with very limited medical or scientific information, go into an abortion clinic to yet still not receive information as simple as that the life growing within her womb has a heartbeat.

As a Committee on the Judiciary, a subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, I implore you to please consider my above testimony on behalf of innocent life growing in a womb, and the vulnerable men and women considering abortion.

But if you will also consider in your deliberations regarding H.R. 490 the last time in American history we were faced with hard Constitutional and political questions on the civil conflict between humanity and convenience; personhood and property, justice and public opinion.

Slavery was, as abortion is, a crime against humanity.

Like slavery, tension was created in the public square and in law, concerning who qualified for natural rights worthy of protection.

For the first 89 years of our nation’s existence, it was the black slave who sought freedom and equal protection under the law: and many attempts were made to heed their cry.

In 1777
Gradual abolition laws were passed in northern states: Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.

In 1807
Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States after January 1, 1808.

In 1831
Emancipation was narrowly defeated in the Virginia constitutional convention.

Today it is the conceived person living in the womb of its mothers that should be considered human with opportunity of equal protection under the law.

It is ironic that while the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1868 humanized slaves, the U.S. Supreme Court of 1973 dehumanized the life of the being in utero — handing down a decision that reeked in ethnic cleansing, to once again allow a powerful few to determine exactly who had a right to humanity.

As with slavery, special interest groups put tremendous pressure on legislators and judges to dehumanize blacks so to protect slavery: today similar pressure is put on legislators and judges by the eugenics movement and other special interest groups regarding abortion.

If the baby in utero is not a human being in the fullest sense of that term, then he or she has no natural right to life. However, if the opposite is true, then the humanity in the womb is entitled to a constitutional right to life.

Ignoring the advent of ultra sound and other medical devices that make it abundantly clear that the baby in utero is alive and indeed human is a disservice to women, and to a society built on the constitutional rights that protect us all.

I pray this Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017 will unanimously pass your committee, and eventually will be voted upon on the House floor.

I have submitted to your Committee a 2015 CURE Policy Report about the Impact of Abortion on the Black Community which will give you more specifics to support my testimony here today.