Remembering Dr. Dolores Grier, pro-life activist who decried abortion as Black genocide

The Catholic and pro-life communities are mourning the death of Dr. Dolores Bernadette Grier, an advocate for life and a gracious Black leader in the New York archdiocese, who passed away on February 22, 2018 — her birthday. As a Black pro-life activist, Dr. Grier founded the Association of Black Catholics Against Abortion and served on the board of the African American Society Against Abortion. She was outspoken about abortion’s impact on the Black community.

Dr. Grier’s voice in defense of life will be missed, but we in the pro-life community are grateful for the legacy she has left behind. A Funeral Mass will be offered at Dr. Grier’s parish church, St. Charles Borromeo in Harlem, on Wednesday, March 7 at 11 a.m.

In 1989, Dr. Grier joined a group of pro-life women, including, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and the first woman employed as a general surgeon at Boston University Medical Center, for a press conference picked up by C-SPAN. Dr. Grier began her speech by calling abortion racism:

Dr. Grier later told those attending that conference that a majority of Blacks oppose abortion and she said she was hopeful that the attitudes of Americans are changing. “I believe that as more and more of the education and the true fact, that there is a life in the womb, that people will begin to say, ‘I do not want to kill,'” she said.

In a prepared statement (page 173) before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee during its May 1990 hearing on the “Freedom of Choice Act,” Grier wrote:

Grier went on to say (page 170) in part:

In 1992, Dr. Grier again agreed with other Black leaders within her community that abortion was a tool of genocide. “What do you see here? Unless you are white, unless you are wealthy… you really shouldn’t come into the world,” she stated.

She then questioned why abortion was being used to solve the problems of poor women, and referred to abortion as “pruning the Black race,” a concept Dr. Grier said began with Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s “Negro Project”:

In that same article, Dr. Grier said that as a woman of color, she was influenced to speak out about abortion after hearing a moving speech in 1977 by civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was once an outspoken advocate for life, at that time. She said, “After the talk, I went up and said, ‘Rev. Jackson, I’m going to join the pro-life movement. You said the pro-life movement needed youth and color, and I am the color.'”

Sadly Jesse Jackson soon changed his position on abortion when he ran for president. Read Jackson’s pro-life statements before his flip here.

In 1995, after President Bill Clinton nominated Henry W. Foster, a Black abortionist who had served on the board of Planned Parenthood, to be the Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Grier spoke out, saying,”The man is not Black. The man is not white. He is an abortionist who terminates life in the womb and that’s what he should be judged by.”

Dr. Grier recently told the Catholic Program, The Journey Home, that we need to pray and fast more for life:

According to Catholic New York (CNY), Grier was named vice chancellor by Cardinal John O’Connor, then Archbishop of New York, in 1985. An announcement about Grier’s death published by in CNY says that the Grier was “believed to have been the first black woman appointed to such a position nationwide.” The publication then expounded on Grier’s pro-life stance:

That 1993 NAACP “honor” was for Grier to be the recipient of the Women’s History Month award. She refused, stating, “As president of the Association of Black Catholics, I believe abortion to be a racist weapon of genocide against black people.”

Today, abortion disproportionately targets Blacks in the womb more than any other race, and the number one provider of abortions in the nation is Planned Parenthood. The abortion lobby would like to convince Americans that our society — and specifically the Black population of America — is okay with abortion, but this is simply false. Black activists like Dolores Grier have been warning America for years and years that abortion would decimate the Black community and become a tool of eugenic genocide against Black people.