Dr. Alveda King, director of Priests for Life’s Civil Rights for the Unborn project and niece of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., called out the “very racist” abortion comments made by model Emily Ratajkowski.
King offered her remarks in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour.
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Mansour invited King’s response to model Emily Ratajkowski’s claim that the Alabama abortion law is aimed at reducing the number of abortions among black women in order to “perpetuate the industrial prison complex.”
Ratajkowski wrote on Instagram and Twitter:
This week, 25 old white men voted to ban abortion in Alabama even in cases of incest and rape. These men in power are imposing their wills onto the bodies of women in order to uphold the patriarchy and perpetuate the industrial prison complex by preventing women of low economic opportunity the right to choose to not reproduce. The states trying to ban abortion are the states that have the highest proportions of black women living there. This is about class and race and is a direct attack on the fundamental human rights women in the US deserve and are protected by under Roe vs. Wade. Our bodies, our choice.
King replied, “Wasn’t that very, very racist? We see at the heart of all of this, we have an office here in America in our government right now of Population Affairs, and it is designed to deal with the sterilization and the birth control and the control of ‘undesirables’ — members of a certain population. Now that office is still in existence today in America.”
“You don’t have to kill people in order to heal a nation,” King added, “That is very racist.”
King also addressed comments made by actress Minka Kelly.
In an instagram post, Kelly described an abortion she had as a service to her unborn “theoretical child”:
When I was younger I had an abortion. It was the smartest decision I could’ve made, not only for myself & my boyfriend at the time, but also for this unborn fetus. For a baby to’ve been born to two people — too young and completely ill equipped — with no means or help from family, would have resulted in a child born into an unnecessary world of struggle. Having a baby at that time would have only perpetuated the cycle of poverty, chaos and dysfunction I was born into. Forcing a child to be born to a mother who isn’t ready, isn’t financially stable, was raped, a victim of incest (!!), isn’t doing that theoretical child any favors.
King, who has spoken candidly about overcoming the trauma of her own past abortions, rejected Kelly’s characterization of abortion as a merciful act.
“If death is a solution to a life of struggle, then why didn’t Ms. Kelly and her boyfriend kill themselves?” she asked. “Not that I’m saying anybody should commit suicide, but I mean, why didn’t you carry it all the way?”
King added, “None of us is going to be able to deal with a life of struggle. … So no, it had nothing to do with them being concerned about that baby living a life of struggle.”
King remarked, “It’s a shame that 25 white men had to pass a law proving that they care about the preservation of black life, because those who cry ‘racism’ in America won’t fight for life in the womb. So where’s the real racism? Where is that racism that we’re talking about? It’s very racist to target a whole group of people and to sell abortion as the answer to your success. That’s racist. That’s what Planned Parenthood did and does.”
King touched on the Hollywood left’s opposition to the the Georgia and Alabama laws.
“Many people in Hollywood are not shouting out the abortions they’re glad they had. For the ones who are, I would even dare to suggest that they have suppressed that pain so deeply that they don’t know it’s there.”
Mansour said, “Many in Planned Parenthood will say, ‘[It’s] because of the pro-life movement that people feel grief. If the pro-lifers weren’t there, they wouldn’t feel any grief.’”
“That’s not true. They hide it,” King replied, explaining that she spent years avoiding thoughts of her own abortions. “When I did [think about them], unfortunately I would go have a drink of bourbon. I don’t drink anything like that now, except maybe the holidays, a nice kosher glass of wine or something like that. But before ’83, I couldn’t sleep without the alcohol.”
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Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.