WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Dr. Alveda King is the Director of African American outreach for Priests for Life. She is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I recently had the privilege of being with Dr. King recently when she visited Southeastern Virginia. I was the Emcee at two showings of the extraordinary film "MAAFA 21 - Black genocide in 21st century America" produced by one of the longtime heroes of the Human Rights struggle of our age, Mark Crutcher, of Life Dynamics. 

I also have a solidarity in service connection with her through my role as the Associate Director of Deacons for life, under the leadership of that champion of the "least of these", Fr. Frank Pavone. Dr. Alveda King is a warm hearted, dedicated, sacrificial, prophetic and extremely gifted leader. She is also a tremendously orator. I believe that she is an anointed leader for the new human and civil rights movement of our age, the effort to restore the Right to Life to our youngest neighbors, children in the womb.

As we have noticed, there is a concerted effort to unjustly paint all participants in that loose coalition that has come to be called the "Tea Party Movement" as racists. Clearly, this is one more example of the growing polarization in our Nation and the horrid lack of respect for people's reputations. I was pleased to see Dr. King issue the following statement in response:
 
"We all need to examine and repent of our own tolerance for discrimination," said Dr. King, "but to condemn an entire group because of a few people, yet support Planned Parenthood, an organization marinated in racism, is to strain out gnats and swallow a camel."
 
"The most obvious practitioner of racism in the United States today is Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by the eugenicist Margaret Sanger and recently documented as ready to accept money to eliminate black babies," added Dr. King.

"The most positive step we can take to fight racism is to end the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies given to an organization that fulfills the dreams of the Ku Klux Klan -- a group Planned Parenthood's founder once addressed."

This kind of courageous and prophetic willingness to speak the truth, no matter what the cost, must be genetic. Her uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a hero of mine. His writings inspired a young hippie (me, back then) who had wandered far from his Catholic Christian roots, to reconsider the claims of Jesus Christ. I will forever be grateful to Dr. Martin Luther King for his heroic life and martyrs death. In some respects, that wonderful Protestant minister is responsible for my return to the Catholic faith as a young man.

His prophetic "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" had a formative effect upon me as a young man, searching for truth and deeply burdened by the injustice of our age. His understanding of the Natural Law was profoundly "catholic" and is critically important for anyone who is dedicated to continuing his fight for the recognition of the dignity of every human life, including the lives of our littlest neighbors. He wrote:

"How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

"All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful."

So it is with the current failure to recognize the humanity and personhood of children in the womb. The science is clear, they are our neighbors. Like every one of us, they too are human beings in development, dependent on others to help them grow into the fullness of our common human vocation. Let's be honest, not even the most ardent and evil abortion advocate tries to argue any longer that they are not human beings. We regularly operate upon them in wonderful intrauterine surgeries. We prosecute people who in the commission of a ...