Anti-Choice Groups Say That Abortion Is Racist

Anyone who reads this site knows that abortion is a controversial issue. But the idea that pro-life groups might campaign along racial lines is a better-kept secret. In a fascinating article in Saturday’s New York Times, reporter Shaila Dewan explores the issue of the high numbers of black women who access abortions. Turns out, some anti-choice groups are using this to claim that abortion doctors and the supporters of abortion clinics are deliberately trying to kill black babies.

As a pro-choice activist, I naturally find these claims to be appalling – especially because the high numbers of black women accessing abortions has everything to do with economic inequality divided along racial lines, and nothing to do with racism on the part of people who run abortion clinics. But the article was nevertheless very interesting, and quite unbiased.

Dewan quotes Loretta Ross, the executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Health Collective in Atlanta, who said, ““It’s a perfect storm,” said Loretta Ross. She listed a lack of access to birth control, lack of education, and even a high rate of sexual violence, as reasons why there are so many unwanted pregnancies. “There’s an assumption that every time a girl is pregnant it’s because of voluntary activity, and it’s so not the case,” she added.

Ross did admit, Dewan writes, that “the idea that abortion is intended to wipe out blacks may be finding fertile ground in a population that has experienced so much sanctioned prejudice and violence.” The old argument that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenicist, gets thrown around a lot too – despite the fact that she said that her views on eugenics (at that time a mainstream movement) were not based in race. She also allied herself with W.E.B. DuBois and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who praised her efforts to bring birth control to black women.

At the end of the day, I wish that this article had spent more time exploring what anti-choice movements are doing to help minority women continue their pregnancies – my guess would be not a lot. And the idea that anti-choice groups are succeeding in their attempts to convince black women that there is a conspiracy against them is extremely disturbing. If anything, it shows the need for better information about the reasons that minority women get abortions – which has nothing to do with the racist inclinations of Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider.

Photo from Mahalie's Flickr photostream.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

12:57PM PST on Mar 4, 2010

Well said Heather A, the inventor of the machine gun was convinced his invention would end war.

Robert said:

And she also spoke of those who were "irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers."

I see the prevalence of abortions in the black community as being largely a problem of education, but in her observation about religious extremists, I agree with Margaret Sanger. No amount of education can change the mind of people brainwashed to believe that God wants them to have 19 kids, like those idiots on TV. Beside being unfair to the kids,it's socially irresponsible to increase the population so dramatically. Google the Malthusian growth curve. It's because of this that virologists are convinced we will see a global viral pandemic in our lifetimes, one which will make H1N1 look like a case of the sniffles and which no one will see coming. This is how mother nature deals with overpopulations of ANY species.

send a green star

Judith S.

9:45AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

While we are talking about the "pill" here, are you aware that insurance will not cover the cost of birth control pills unless they are for any reason other than to prevent pregnancy? They will cover Viagra and Cialis, however. Go figure.

Bette M.

9:14AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

Left this out of my last comment:
Six billion people on this planet.......Shooting to seven billion!

Plant & protect trees for life........................

9:13AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

The cost of an abortion is obviously much higher than to get a precription for the PILL. I think if the state(s) had a choice they would logically pay for the pill than an abortion for blacks or poor white. Not being able to get the PILL is full of B.S. If there is such a thing as eugenics then no doctor would precribe the pill if he believed the population of blacks was in danger or it was being promoted to lessen their numbers. And, I've never heard of a black woman being forced to take the PILL! Have you?

This is not Nazi Germany nor is it China! People have the freedom of choice to choose whether to limit or increase the children they want or have. But, all too many young teen girls lose their capacity to think logically about the consequences of unprotected sex & this applies to black teens as well as white!!!!!!!
When I got married at twenty for some strange illogical reason I thought I could not get pregnant!!!! Amonth to the day later I was pregnant! And, I'm the oldest of eleven!!!!! How much did I know about sex??.......And, the consequences of getting pregnant? Dam near nothing!!!!!! However, I would not change ever having my daughter for anything. And, I had a son twenty years later!!!

Since there are 750,000 babies born in the U.S. to teens under 18 free will & stupidity is alive & well.

If there is eugenics going on it probably is a good thing because there are 6 plus humans on this BLUE DOT.(Google Blue Dot.)

Plant & protect trees

9:06AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

Past Member .

8:40AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

Heather, I am not saying, nor do I think, and I have to emphasis on, TODAY'S s Planned Parenthood is racist, all I am giving are actual facts of the matter, of abortion clinics, being in much more abundance in areas of which black-American's live then white-Americans.

As we see with a select few around Care 2, if your black, you can ever do right and there for should go and get abortions so to allow them, the whites, who can't see past their own ugliness, can be allowed to run and roam the Earth free from their blackness and give them back their lands.

8:29AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

Heather A. Thank you for a beautifully written fair comment!

Plant & protect trees for life...............

Heather A.

8:06AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

Most of the historical figures who helped shape the world as we know it probably had views that are disagreed with today. I'm pretty sure that a good deal of your country's former presidents owned slaves and thought nothing of it, making them racist, too.

Also, just because something was invented or promoted with a certain intention doesn't mean that its use will always be with that intention. For instance, nuclear power was discovered by a man who thought he was doing the world a great favour by providing them with an economical source of energy. Little did he know that his discovery would be used to murder tons of people. Meanwhile, all kinds of inventions have been made during war with the intention to harm people, and are now used to improve our quality of life. Clearly something's reason for being invented has no bearing on whether its use in the future will be a good or a bad thing. So even if abortion had been invented in the name of eugenics, that doesn't matter because it is now used to save lives, to protect some of the most vulnerable people out there, and to give women control over their bodies.

7:40AM PST on Mar 3, 2010

Black-Americans are endangered, do you all not watch the news? We are allowing our white own legal guns into the ghettos, so they will kill off all of the Black-American youth, we are granting laws that will protect people who sell their guns into these hoods to these children, allowing them to walk the streets, mean while having no responsibility on their part for selling that gun, because they say it MUST have been stolen, but I never reported it. sorry officer AND Mother/Father, about that/your child's murder with the gun I bought, but I didn't shot that child that black kid did, but I didn't report that gun stolen either, my bad! (that is because I actually sold it to the kid who killed your kid, but that isn't here or there. SHHHHHHH) In my area a man used the term Cultural genocide to describe what is going on here.

Planned Parenthood was built on and from an extremely racist female, her name has been mentioned several times in this thread. That is fact, it is also fact that in the areas that are predominately black, sex education is not taught and to get birth control, it is either not available or is too expensive for a non-working or hell, in my state, even working women, can't afford it.
I am Pro-Choice yet see that the availability of abortions are much more accessible and affordable, more so in the ghetto areas then in the suburban area. Both of which I have lived in, in my State of Pa., then a doctor who will give you the pill or shot. Look up the term Eugeni

10:12PM PST on Mar 2, 2010

Informing black women of a conspiracy underfoot actually sounds like a good idea to me, it is this kind of thing that can make awareness spring forward....in regards to the quality of life that we see for ourselves and whose hands are in the cookie jar of our own life.