WHEREAS, the Knights of Columbus has a long-standing policy of opposing abortion, while promoting life-affirming alternatives and projects that provide spiritual support to those women suffering from the traumatic emotional and psychological aftereffects of abortion; and
WHEREAS, Pope Francis has made clear that all new lives conceived “are children of the entire community, and their being killed in large numbers with the backing of the state constitutes a grave problem…;” and
WHEREAS, the abortion rate for children diagnosed with Down Syndrome in utero is approximately 66% in the United States and approaching 100% in several European countries; and
WHEREAS, the January 2020 Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll found that 65% of all Americans, and half of all pro-choice Americans, oppose abortion when sought because the unborn child has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome; and
WHEREAS, in Asia, cultural and governmental pressures have led to rampant sex-selection abortions resulting in as many as 160 million “missing women” over the past several decades; and
WHEREAS, in the United States, the abortion rate among African American populations is 3.5 times the abortion rate among those of Caucasian decent; and
WHEREAS, the rise of legal abortion, especially in the United States, tracked closely with the popularity of the eugenics movement which pursued strategies of social pressure, contraception, and—ultimately—abortion, to attain its stated goal of “improving the stock,” which the eugenics movement claimed would “give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable…;” and
WHEREAS, Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger was a leading proponent of the U.S. eugenics movement, and one of Planned Parenthood’s most prominent presidents, Alan Guttmacher, echoed eugenicist sentiment saying of the successful legal expansion of abortion, “We’re now concerned more with the quality of population than the quantity;” and
WHEREAS, the U.S. Congress, and several states, have proposed laws to ban abortions that are sought because of the race, sex, or disability of an unborn child with some states recently enacting these discrimination bans; and
WHEREAS, the ideology underlying the twentieth century eugenics movement has emerged in the twenty-first century as opposition to these discrimination bans; and
WHEREAS, in responding to a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood opposing one of these state laws, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas expressed his support for such laws, stating unequivocally, “…this law and other laws like it promote a state’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics,” going on to note that, “Technological advances have only heightened the eugenic potential for abortion, as abortion can now be used to eliminate children with unwanted characteristics, such as a particular sex or disability,” and concluding that, “Enshrining a constitutional right to an abortion based solely on the race, sex, or disability of an unborn child, as Planned Parenthood advocates [in this case], would constitutionalize the views of the 20th-century eugenics movement.”
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that while the Knights of Columbus continues to stand against all abortion, it wholeheartedly endorses legislative, regulatory, and legal attempts to eliminate the particularly evil practice of seeking an abortion because of an unborn child’s race, sex, or disability; and
FURTHER RESOLVED, that we condemn the practice of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and other abortion providers, of over-targeting certain ethnic and racial demographics to promote abortion in these communities.