On the fortieth anniversary of the day that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated in the prime of his life, we face another tragedy in the African American community. A tragedy that many are not aware of and that rarely presents itself in any discussion of the challenges facing black people in America. A tragedy that many black elected leaders haven't voiced opposition to and have in many cases supported. And a tragedy that would undoubtedly greatly shock Dr. King if he were alive to see this day.

The tragedy is that for every two black babies born in the United States, one unborn African American baby in America is aborted.

Abortion, a topic that provokes deep emotion among people who are on all sides of the issue, is much more common than most of us think among people of all races. Across all races, for every five American babies born, there is an abortion of a sixth baby who is not permitted to be born. Many of the arguments that are used to defend the practice of abortion are presented in a way that obscures the true statistical facts that surround the practice. For example, although it is commonly believed that most abortions are had by very young people, the CDC reports that only approximately 20% of abortions are had by mothers under the age of 20. And though people who defend abortion often mention the issue of rape, it has been estimated that only about 1-2% of abortions involve a mother who is pregnant as the result of sexual assault or incest (in fact, even if every reported rape in the United States led to an unwanted pregnancy that was followed by an abortion, this would only amount to less than 10% of the abortions reported each year). In addition, there is considerable misinformation about the human development life cycle that leads many to have an improper understanding of what abortion is. Abortion is anything but rare and in almost all cases, involves the termination of a human life in development whose heart has already started beating (since the heart starts beating typically one week after the first missed period). In my opinion, abortion in general is a national shame.

But as bad as it is in general, the statistics on abortion get considerably worse when viewed with a focus on the African American community. Here are some simple, well-documented facts:

• Although African Americans make up 12.4 percent of the U.S. population we make up 35% of the abortions
• The abortion rate for black women is 2.9 times the rate for white women
• From 1989 until 2004, the abortion rate differential for black women increased from twice that of white women to 2.9 times as much.
• For every 1,000 black babies born, there are 472 unborn black babies aborted, which means that for every two black babies born, one black baby is aborted.

This chart is a graphical representation of the statistics. Excluding miscarriages and stillbirths, one third of black pregnancies ends in abortion. Black elected leaders in Congress (who are all members of the Democratic Party, which has made protection of the legality of abortion a key focal area for decades) have generally not only not made this a topic of discussion, but have, for the most part, voted to keep the practice of abortion for any reason legal.

Even though abortion usually happens as the result of a voluntary action by the expectant mother (but not always), it has long been suspected that certain organizations have encouraged blacks in particular to have abortions. In February, it was reported that The Advocate, a right-to-life student magazine at the University of California, tape recorded a phone conversation between an actor working for the organization and the Vice President of Development and Marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho. Here is an excerpt from the article that described the call:

On the recording provided by The Advocate, an actor portraying a donor said he wanted his money used to eliminate black unborn children because "the less black kids out there the better."

Kersey laughed nervously and said: "Understandable, understandable. ... Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited and want to make sure I don't leave anything out."

Planned Parenthood, which has long been suspected by many of placing its clinics in areas with high concentrations of African Americans, and whose founder once spoke at a Ku Klux Klan meeting and who spoke at another point with Nazi anthropologist Eugen Fischer, stated that it had taken "corrective action" against the individual.

Although a key difference in the thinking of many who call themselves pro-choice and those who call themselves pro-life is the question of when life begins, there is one fact that both sides should easily agree on. In both abortion of an unborn baby and the death of an already born person, the future population in either case is decreased by one. And while many black elected leaders and clergy members talk about the issues that cause many deaths among already born African Americans - AIDS, gun violence, and health issues among them, many of the same people refuse to talk about the epidemic level of abortion in the black community. The CDC reports that in 2004, 35% of the 839,226 abortions that occurred in the United States that year involved the termination of the lives of unborn African American babies. Multiplying these two numbers together, we end up with a rough total of 293,729 unborn African American babies that were aborted in 2004 (not including California, West Virginia, and New Hampshire, which refused to provide its numbers to the government). At the same time, another CDC report shows that in the entire United States in 2004, there were a total of 283,859 deaths of already born African Americans. So, there were more abortions of black babies than deaths of all already-born black people from all causes in the U.S. during that same time period. More black babies were aborted than the total number of all black people who died from cancer, heart disease, homicide, AIDS, diabetes, combat injuries, etc - all put together. And, based on these numbers, in a five day period, the number of black unborn babies whose lives are terminated through abortion (4,023) is greater than the total number of  U.S. troops who have died in the Iraq War (4,012) as of this writing.

Outgoing Maryland Congressman Albert Wynn celebrates the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and rallies for abortion rights with Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much outrage, discussion or dialogue regarding the issue of abortion. In fact, many who claim to represent the ethnic group most affected by abortion seem to be wholly in favor of changing nothing regarding its legality (in many cases for any reason and at any point in the pregnancy) and availability. And if thirty five years of abortion being promoted as a natural alternative to allowing an unborn baby to be born has shown a dramatic rise in the occurrence of abortion in the black community, one can only imagine how much more broadly African Americans might be affected by it in the future. According to NARAL Pro Choice America, every single member of the Congressional Black Caucus who was rated by the organization, including Senator Barack Obama, has a 100% Pro-Choice approval rating from them. It is difficult to understand why people who voice concern over how other social ills are affecting the lives of African Americans don't understand the incredibly high rate not only of abortion in general but the degree to which it is harming blacks in particular.