The great strength of our city is our diversity. We are different colors from many different ethnic and religious traditions. I stand here this afternoon appalled by the vital statistics in our City which seem to suggest that so many of our young mothers are opting to terminate the lives of unborn children. As the leaders of faith based communities in our City we must redouble our efforts to ensure that young mothers have the support systems necessary to cope with potential alienation from family and loved ones as well as continue to meet the demands of education and/or work.

At the same time, we religious leaders must point out that these trends seem to suggest that the various attempts of the state to insert “sex education curriculums” in our schools begun in 1986 and distribute “birth control devices” to our children in 1991 are having a profoundly negative consequence upon the lives of our City’s young. The failure of our schools and institutions is not that we speak about sex but rather that our speech is devoid of any value system and therefore our young fail to recognize the moral dimension to the most profound and intimate of human interactions.

Lastly, these statistics are a clarion call for all of us who are concerned that the aggressive efforts of some to encourage the poor, especially African-Americans (47% of pregnancies) and Latinos (32% of pregnancies), to terminate the lives of their unborn children closely approximates genocide.