DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9705110046

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NIA NGINA MEEKS, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  104 lines

BLACK GROUP RALLIES FOR END TO ABORTION ONE CONCERN: BLACK WOMEN'S ABORTION RATE IS DISPROPORTIONATELY HIGH.

Beneath a clear sky and the rustle of trees, some 30 men, women and children stood, sat and knelt in silence before a Tidewater Women's Health Clinic on Saturday morning.

They came from across South Hampton Roads and beyond. Some waved their hands to the sky while tears fell down the cheeks of others as this mostly black gathering prayed.

Johnny Hunter, a Virginia Beach pastor, had asked these people and black congregations around the country to stand in front of abortion clinics and pray for an hour on the eve of Mother's Day.

Hunter is the national director of the Life Education and Resource Network, an umbrella group for some 60 black pro-life organizations around the country.

Pro-life rallies usually conjure images of suburban, conservative, white, evangelistic protesters linking together, waving signs or being dragged off by police. Seldom are brown faces among those included in clips on the 11 o'clock news.

Yet a pro-life movement is at work among the nation's black population, some say.

The National Right to Life Committee, one of the largest pro-life groups in the country, formed Black Americans for Life in the mid-'80s. An outreach group of the national committee, Black Americans for Life has chapters and members across the country, committee spokesman Ernest Ohlhoff said. ``We really want to work with everybody . . . people of all ages, races and religions,'' he said.

Ohlhoff said a considerable number of members are black, though he did not have a specific breakdown. He said the committee doesn't tally race, and Blacks for Life is more like a loose-knit federation.

It is a federation Hunter connected with, along with several others, when his group formed four years ago. Initially seven churches and organizations composed LEARN. Today, membership is close to 60 such groups that span 27 states.

The Saturday rally was to run in 40 cities in 20 states, Hunter said.

Most black pro-lifers don't use the knock-down, drag-out tactics that others in the pro-life movement do, observers said. They concentrate on reducing the reasons that lead black women to end pregnancies, through crisis clinics, mentor programs and information groups.

``This might not be the avenue for everybody,'' Joyce Winn of Virginia Beach, who stood before the Norfolk clinic, said of getting out on the front lines. ``A child being born and the mother being proud, that's pro-life. Giving a positive influence in that child's life, that's pro-life.''

Hunter gathered his group in prayer around 10:30 a.m., asking God to forgive them for being indifferent to the abortion cause in the past. They prayed that abortion clinics will go out of business.

Cars slowed as they turned into the clinic's driveway. A few drivers rolled down their windows to ask what the hubbub was about. Most pressed on into the clinic.

The latest report from the Atlanta-based national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the rate of abortion among black women is three times that of white women. In 1994, the latest year for which data are available, the CDC reported that 35 percent of all abortions performed in the United States were on black women. Black people represent 12 percent of the U.S. population.

In Virginia, about one-third of abortion patients between ages 14 and 44 are black, according to the Virginia Department of Health. About 20 percent of Virginia women in that age group are black.

To Hunter and his compatriots, abortion among black people represents genocide. ``I believe black people are ignorant to what's going on. They are ignorant to the statistics,'' Andre Dent said. He and his family came from Gates County, N.C., to participate in the rally.

Others in the muck of the abortion drama don't see a targeted genocide but a variety of other factors that elevate rates among black women. That's the view of Susan Tew of the New York-based Alan Guttmacher Institute, which conducted a major and oft-cited study on women and abortion in 1987.

Researchers surveyed women who opted for abortion. Major reasons were repeated across racial, ethnic and age lines: worry about how pregnancy would change their lives, inability to afford a baby, troubled relationships, desire to avoid single parenthood and not being ready for the responsibility.

While black women have higher abortion rates than white women, Tew said, they also have higher birth rates.

``If you were talking about population control, black women would also be targeted in terms of pregnancy prevention,'' she added.

Several of the women who visited the clinic Saturday were black. Some were with other women, others with men.

``Brother, bring her back here,'' Dent called to a couple entering the clinic. ``Destroying that child will not help you. Be a man, brother.''

The couple slipped inside the clinic, and the group outside continued to pray and sing.

The abortion fight doesn't always take front-and-center attention for many black faith leaders who focus on drug, violence and poverty issues.

Hunter, who is a pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Virginia Beach, sees that as a shortsighted, ungodly view.

``For the church to turn its back on these little ones is really horrible,'' he said. ``What good is a safe playground if a child doesn't live? We are part of the problem as long as we participate in the abortion industry. Silence means consent.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JIM WALKER

Johnny Hunter, a Virginia Beach pastor, leads a prayer during an

anti-abortion rally at Tidewater Women's Health Clinic in Norfolk.

Sixty black groups across the country held prayer vigils on

Saturday. Hunter is also national director of an umbrella group for

the black organizations. KEYWORDS: ABORTION BLACK

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