NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE W hen we celebrate Juneteenth, we don’t just celebrate the end of slavery in America. We celebrate the beginning of black families living freely and safely. We celebrate the right of black Americans to build families — and, in doing so, to build futures. Post-Dobbs, it’s become popular to argue that racial justice and the right to abort preborn children are inextricably linked. But the pro-abortion agenda and true racial justice — the sort of racial justice we celebrate on June 19 — couldn’t be more opposed.

On June 19, 1865, about 250,000 enslaved black Texans finally learned they’d been freed under the Emancipation Proclamation. The order had legally gone into effect more than two years earlier, but the struggle to subdue Confederate territories continued.

One of the first things newly freed slaves did was look for their families, as the evil of chattel slavery had cruelly separated parents, children, and siblings. They posted ads in local papers and roamed around the country, looking for lost spouses and children. Their frantic efforts to reunite with loved ones was characteristic of the Reconstruction era. Freedom, for them, undeniably meant building and protecting families and forming strong communities.

The struggle to protect black American families didn’t end there, though. Legal freedom was, in practice, no guarantee of safety, success, or even freedom. The premature end of Reconstruction birthed a violent new power structure as southern states choked off so many freedoms granted to freed slaves. Almost 100 years after the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th amendment, the civil-rights era began to win back these basic human rights.

Black men and women, led in large part by black clergy, as they had been during the Reconstruction era, fought for the right to education, the right to work, and the right to freely associate, worship, and travel. More importantly, they fought for their children’s rights. The black family has been and always will be the beating heart of efforts for racial justice and reform. The black church has been and needs to be America’s conscience, rallying together, demanding liberty and justice while serving and empowering communities that deserve it most.

Yet activists, and even some pastors, tout abortion as one of the “rights” we should be celebrating on Juneteenth. This isn’t just morally incoherent, it’s offensive. Abortion destroys the families we’ve fought so hard to protect. It isn’t a “right,” and it builds nothing. Abortion annihilates a life and, in doing so, tears apart the social fabric that binds us together.

I’m happy to debate policy questions and argue over what harms black families the most — after all, many of them face an overwhelming range of assaults today. Just take a look at the statistics on marriage rates, segregation and school funding, economic inequality, maternal mortality, and police abuses. Look at the hundreds of years of state-sanctioned abuse and discrimination that black Americans’ forebears endured, and consider the lingering marks that heritage has left not only on these families but on every facet of this nation. These are the problems we must be focused on. Abortion solves none of them. It isn’t justice, it’s death.

I wonder sometimes what the abortion landscape would look like were it not for a journey characterized by residential segregation, overincarceration, and the devastating impact of deindustrialization. I wonder how many more black mothers would feel joy at the prospect of a child, rather than fear. I wonder how many more black fathers would be convinced that leading a household was desirable rather than impossible. I wonder how many more black families would see hope in their future, rather than confusion and hardship.

This Juneteenth, my family is going to celebrate centuries of sacrifice by black American families, leaders, and clergy on behalf of our civil rights. We will celebrate our emancipation, enfranchisement, and legacy of achievement. We will celebrate the futures we can build — while at the same time condemning the injustices so many black families face today.

This Juneteenth, I ask you to stop buying the deadly lie that abortion liberates or uplifts black Americans. It’s killing us, because it’s killing our children. And it’s wounding the communities we’ve worked so hard to build.