MLK relative urges fight for anti-abortion agenda in Lombard

Alveda King's message to a crowd of hundreds of anti-abortion advocates Saturday in Lombard was blunt, even graphic.

Seeking to draw connections between the civil rights movement and the battle to end legalized abortion, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. displayed images of aborted children on a projection screen and spoke in detail about regrets over her own two abortions.

"Each of you is a warrior for life," King told the crowd, assembled for the SpeakOut Illinois Conference at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center hotel. "Abortion is not a civil right. Abortion is genocide."

Much of King's nearly hourlong speech was spent urging her audience, made up of members of several anti-abortion groups from throughout the state, to continue pushing legislators to make abortion illegal.

"President (Barack) Obama should be flooded by calls from us," King said. "Did you notice that the provision to distribute condoms came out of the recent stimulus package? It's because all of you were sending post cards and calling and Facebooking and Twittering."

Downstate resident Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime vocal opponent of abortion, was honored at the event with the group's "Henry Hyde Life Leadership Award."