The issue of abortion, controversial everywhere, has an even sharper edge for some blacks. They go beyond the anti-abortion belief that abortion is murder: They believe it's genocide.
"It's a way to eliminate a certain group of people," said Erma Clardy Craven, a retired social worker, who for 21 years has spoken against abortion. "It's elitist, racist and genocidal."
And she said it's being pushed on poor women by members of a power structure "to suit their own genocidal ends."
To that, Jane Johnson, vice president for affiliate development and education at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York, has a sharp response:
"Genocide, the elimination of a race or people, has no bearing when it comes to an individual woman making a decision about reproduction.
"To presume that one group of people is so incapable of making a personal decision is an insult," Ms. Johnson said.
Ms. Johnson, like Mrs. Craven, is black. Both were social workers. Both saw poverty in New York slums. But on the issue of abortion, they differ profoundly.
Mrs. Craven, 74, a Minnesotan who describes herself as "a liberal Democrat and a radical Methodist," is firm in her belief. She brought her argument to Baltimore over the weekend, in talks sponsored by Defend Life, an anti-abortion organization.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based research group that specializes in issues such as abortion and birth control, black women have abortions at more than twice the rate of whites.
Twenty-one white women per 1,000 have abortions, compared with 57 black women per 1,000.
"The pressure on welfare women today is to have abortions," said Mrs. Craven, who favors education about birth control. "The pressure is primarily from people who are making money promoting it, primarily Planned Parenthood."
Planned Parenthood officials have heard the charge before. They dismiss it, saying they don't recruit clients; they serve women who need help.
Black women have abortions at higher rates because they tend more often to use "crisis care" for their medical problems, Ms. Johnson said.
"Unintended pregnancy has been the scourge of women, particularly minority women, as long as they have been in America," Ms. Johnson said.
Ms. Craven's charges echo accusations first raised in the 1960s, when members of black power movements linked efforts to legalize abortion with alleged white paranoia about poor minority groups. But it is impossible to say how many black Americans share Mrs. Craven's beliefs.
