Pastors for Life

New York Pastors for Life exists to see Buffalo and New York become the most pro-family, pro-life town and state in the nation.

A coalition of church leaders from across Buffalo and Western NY are speaking up about the impact of abortion on our Black and Hispanic communities. In an unprecedented display of unity and diversity, over 100 Buffalo-area pastors joined together to hold a press conference at Mt Olive Baptist Church to decry the impact of abortion on our minority communities.

59 black babies are aborted for every 100 born in Buffalo every year compared to 18 white babies aborted to 100 white babies born

Rev. William Gillison

View the full Press Release:

Abortion Targets Buffalo Minorities: Leadership Coalition Sounds Alarm

Area church leaders revealed their commitment and plan to push back against abortion which they insist is a great social injustice. The campaign is designed to sound the alarm among all the communities in Buffalo from the Black and Hispanic, urban to suburban, Catholic to Protestant. According to New York State vital statistics, 37% of all black pregnancies in Buffalo end in abortion.

“The Hispanic community is not far behind the Black community with 1 in 5 pregnancies ending in abortion.”

Rev. Sam Rivera Jr., President of the Hispanic Pastors’ Association

“This reality is unacceptable and needs to change. We cannot rely on government to change it for us. This is a God-sized problem that requires God’s people to step up.”

Rev. William Gillison

The group holds that abortion is having a devastating impact on the ability of our communities to flourish.

It all comes down to our unwillingness as a society to protect the personhood of certainly the Black and Hispanic boys and girls, but all preborn babies. It represents the same root problem that permitted the enslavement of Blacks in the U.S.—refusing to acknowledge the personhood and therefore the ‘inalienable’ rights of the black man. That is exactly what the Supreme Court did in their erroneous abortion ruling, Roe vs Wade. And it is decimating our people. In 1787 we asked, ‘AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?’ and we overcame. The time has come for all believers in Buffalo to raise our voice for the future of all people and ask, “Am I Not a Child?”

Rev. William Gillison

The following is an excerpt of the personhood statement that the Buffalo church leaders have signed:  

A person is an organism with unique human DNA governing his or her own maturation from conception to natural death.… Redefining personhood is arbitrary at best and mercenary at worst. The black community understands well what happens when a small group of people decides to force their narrow definition of personhood upon society: slavery and death. Abortion represents one small group of people deciding that boys and girls in the womb are not people.

Join your fellow church leaders by signing the personhood statement.

This is not a political issue. This is a human one. If we fail to protect the personhood of all humans at every stage of maturity then we are all slaves to the whims of another man’s agenda. May God help us overcome this inhumanity.

Father Art Ward
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