Recently, members of the United States Congress came together to unveil two plaques that will hang at the Capitol, both of which acknowledge the use of slave labor in constructing the building. Democrats and Republicans (including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and others) spoke at the ceremony, and both sides spoke eloquently about the unfair treatment and lack of recognition the slaves endured.

Other than the (not unfair) thought that two small plaques aren’t really enough to recognize the achievements of the slaves and the injustices they endured, it’s hard to imagine anyone having a problem with the thought behind the ceremony.

Well, anyone other than, of course, radical anti-choice organizations.

That’s right. Various anti-choice African-American groups have denounced the ceremony because it had nothing to do with abortion, even though, of course, unveiling in fact had nothing to do with abortion. What was their problem? Well, I’ll let Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union, explain:

“How can Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and others flash their pearly-whites in front of television cameras supposedly to honor black slaves yet adamantly support the genocidal killing of the great, great, grand children of slaves by abortion?”

You have to kind of admire the great lengths that some people will go to in order to link any situation to their pet cause. It really seems that in these individuals’ minds, the thought process is something like this: “Of course the plaque unveiling was really about abortion, and it’s entirely disingenuous for Pelosi and Reid to not come out and admit this.” It’s pretty astonishing, really.

And I don’t think I’m being unfair when I say that using the official recognition of slave labor’s role in the building of this country as an opportunity to push an unrelated cause is pretty shameful.

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