The Spectacle Blog
Some years ago, I testified at the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta on the subject of abortion regulations and their constitutionality. I will never forget the testimony that day of women who have had abortions and have come to greatly regret that choice. In particular, there was a young, black woman who tearfully recounted her dreams of a son who asked her why she ended his life. Moving past the intense power of her story, she went on to tell what she knew about the disparate racial impact of abortion on the African-American community. Afterwards, an African-American state senator from the Democrat party questioned her about whether her claims were really true.
Do African-Americans have more abortions? The answer is yes. A number of pro-life academics have created the website Moral Accountability to encourage the group of evangelical and Catholic intellectuals who supported Obama on the basis that he would reduce the incidence of abortion to keep him morally accountable. Writing for that website, Union University’s Micah Watson (a former student of Princeton’s Robert George) offers detailed statistics on African-Americans and abortion.
Read it all, but here’s a sample:
Consider the following: African-Americans make up 26% of the population of Alabama; they account for 54.7% of the abortions; 29.6% of Georgia’s roughly 8 million citizens are African-Americans yet African-Americans make up 57.8% of the abortions; in North Carolina the population percentage is 21.3% while the proportion of black abortions is 44.2%; in my adopted home state of Tennessee, African-Americans are 16.6% of the population yet make up 41.6% of the abortions; most egregious, however, is Mississippi where African-Americans make up 37.1% of the population and a mind-boggling 77.2% of the abortions. In fact, in every state where African-Americans make up more than 10% of the population, the black abortion rate far exceeds the population percentage, often by a factor of two or three.
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http://spectator.org/blog/2009/02/02/abortion-and-the-race-issue
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Interloper| 2.3.09 @ 6:16AM
Those same, largely Southern states, have high rates of poverty and discrimination, particularly for African-Americans. Black women, often beset by health problems as well, are choosing not to create more children to suffer the same discounted lives they've lived themselves and observed closely. When opportunities and outcomes for African-Americans are equalized, there will be fewer abortions, homicides and suicides in that demographic.
One of the ironies of the anti-abortion movement is that its adherents have no use for black people, despite their supposed concern for black fetuses. These Southern white evangelicals helped create and maintain the unequal conditions their black fellow citizens live in. They are in no position morally to lecture the very people they've abused.
Jon B| 3.13.10 @ 6:27AM
Obama's restoring of funds for pregnancy prevention measures in the world's poorest countries reduced abortions by 10's of millions in the next 8 years. Republicans lie about the Mexico City Policy by falsely claiming it funds abortions, etc. It's been illegal for US $'s to fund abortions overseas since 1973, but we DO fund pregnancy prevention measures, emergency field birth kits, etc.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_wrld.htm
1993: Repeal of the funding ban: President Clinton felt that private, foreign organizations should be able to receive USAID funding for that part of their programs that involved pregnancy prevention, even though they used their funds raised elsewhere to finance abortions or to appeal for abortion reform. On 1993-JAN-22, his second day in office, he rescinded the executive order.
2001: Reinstatement of the funding ban: On 2001-JAN-22, during his first day in office, President George W. Bush reinstated the funding ban for family planning programs run by agencies that also provide abortion services out of their own funds. His rationale was somewhat confusing. He wrote to the U.S. Agency for International Development: "It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad." But no such funds have ever been granted. Existing legislation prevents foreign grants from being used to fund abortions or provide abortion counseling.
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0126-05.htm
January 26, 2001: Family planning research groups, such as the Alan Guttmacher Institute, last year said that if US funding levels were restored to the $540 million (from $425 million), the following would happen: Nearly 12 million more couples in developing countries would gain access to modern methods of contraception.
There would be 4.3 million fewer unintended pregnancies, 1.5 million fewer unintended births, 500,000 fewer miscarriages; 2.2 million fewer abortions each year; 8,000 fewer deaths from unsafe abortions, 7,000 fewer deaths from other causes related to pregnancy and 92,000 fewer deaths of infants.
Bush cut funding on 1-22-2001, then cut it some more in 2002, so it was roughly 1/2 or just over $200 million. However, some of it was restored because of his 2003 Africa/Aids program, which he didn't fully fund either. Bush cut aids funding completely in early 2001, and dropped another program in Congress (around $800K more) too. then restarted the program 2 years later promising roughly the same $ amount he prevented in the first place.
One Dove | 2.3.09 @ 6:21AM
Excellent post Hunter. And you know, the fact that this is public, well-distributed, amply discussed information, only makes it more difficult for me to understand how any rational, well-intentioned, black politician could ever support abortion. To do so seems like an act of racial treason.
karen| 2.18.09 @ 9:09AM
Excuse me interloper if women did want to give children the same bad experiences they had, can they perhaps not become pregnant in the first place?