Antiabortion Billboards Misrepresent Factors That Affect Abortion Rate Among Blacks, Columnist Writes

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 19 Mar 2010 - 4:00 PDT


"Perhaps members of the antiabortion movement are growing a bit desperate," which could explain "why 'racism' has become the battle cry of the antiabortion groups whose members -- overwhelmingly white, conservative and Republican -- like to think that racism no longer exists," Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker writes. Tucker notes that the antiabortion-rights group Georgia Right to Life "is presenting itself as the last line of defense against a widespread plot to wipe out black people" and has launched a billboard campaign claiming that "[b]lack children are an endangered species" because of abortion. Tucker writes that although the abortion rate is "disproportionately" higher among blacks compared with other racial groups, blacks also have a higher birth rate than the national average, and "their numbers are not threatened."

She continues that contraceptive use has helped contribute to a decline in the abortion rate during the past 25 years, with "black women's rates falling along with those of other ethnic groups." Despite the decrease, blacks and Hispanics "still terminate pregnancies at higher rates than white women," she writes. According to Susan Cohen of the Guttmacher Institute, one-third of all abortions are obtained by white women and about 37% are obtained by black women, even though blacks make up less than 7% of the population. Cohen wrote in a 2008 journal article that the "truth is that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. ... Because black women as a group want the same number of children as white women, but have so many more unintended pregnancies, they are more likely than white women to terminate an unintended pregnancy by abortion to avoid an unwanted birth." Tucker says the disparity in abortion rates between black women and white women "are certainly troubling," but it is "both sexist and racist to suggest that black women don't have the intellectual and emotional firepower to make their own decisions." She adds, "If conservatives are sincere about curbing abortions, ... they should support efforts to broaden women's health care, which includes reproductive care" and access to contraception. However, "social and religious conservatives have been fighting health care reform, which would broaden access to reproductive health care, with the passion they normally reserve for bashing Roe v. Wade," Tucker writes, concluding, "That's why it's hard to believe they really care about black women -- or their children" (Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3/17).

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