{"id":199882,"date":"2019-04-08T17:12:18","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T22:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=199882"},"modified":"2019-04-08T17:12:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T22:12:18","slug":"abortions-devastating-impact-upon-black-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortions-devastating-impact-upon-black-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion\u2019s devastating impact upon Black Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(The Public Discourse<\/a>)\u00a0When Stacey Abrams lost her bid for Georgia governor last November, she explained away her loss with the common liberal talking point that racism deprived her fellow African-Americans and other minorities of their fundamental right to vote. Her campaign was largely focused on turning out the minority vote.<\/p>\n

In contrast, her silence was deafening concerning a far more potent factor holding down the black vote: namely, the staggering number of abortions in the black community. The inconvenient truth of \u201cblack genocide\u201d<\/a> significantly decreased the potential black population of Georgia over the past fifty years. According to recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics<\/a>, while African-Americans constitute 32.2 percent of Georgia\u2019s population, 62.4 percent of abortions in Georgia are performed on African-American women. By contrast, whites constitute 60.8 percent of the Georgia population, but only 24.7 percent of abortions were performed on white women. Even pro-abortion groups like the Guttmacher Institute admit<\/a> that \u201cblack women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n

These abortion numbers have curtailed population increases in the African-American community. Michael Novak calculated in 2002 that without the incidence of abortion, the African-American population would show at least <\/em>a 36-percent increase. Even this number does not take into account the number of children who may have been born to those who were aborted.<\/p>\n

In its endorsement<\/a> of Abrams, Planned Parenthood referred to her as an \u201cunwavering champion for reproductive health and rights.\u201d In proudly accepting their endorsement, Ms. Abrams emphasized that she would \u201cnot whisper\u201d her campaign\u2019s pro-choice position, proclaiming that abortion would be a \u201cproud and central facet\u201d of her campaign and governance. By aligning herself with Planned Parenthood\u2019s agenda, Abrams ignored the warnings of community pastors such as Clenard Childress, Jr.<\/a>, who warned, \u201cIf the current trend [of abortions in the black community] continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abrams\u2019s strong support of Planned Parenthood highlights either her hypocrisy or her lack of knowledge concerning abortion\u2019s devastating effect on the African-American population. This is also true for the myriad black-led liberal groups (such as the Congressional Black Caucus) that unequivocally endorse Planned Parenthood, the number-one killer within the African-American community. In spite of overall falling abortion rates in the U.S., numbers released in 2018 by the CDC<\/a>\u00a0reveal that in certain time periods studied, for example 2007 to 2010, abortion ratios actually increased among black women as compared to white women. The abortion ratios of the latter decreased. Nationally<\/a>, the Centers for Disease Control point out that nearly half of all pregnancies among black women end in abortion (472 per 1,000), while among white women only 16 percent of pregnancies are aborted (161 per 1,000). In New York City, where Planned Parenthood is headquartered, more black babies are aborted than are born alive (1,180 abortions for every 1,000 live births).<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Planned Parenthood director: \u2018Non-white races must be excluded from America\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Culture and the Supreme Court<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the sexual revolution took off in the 1960s, the federal government\u2014and especially the Supreme Court\u2014began to help dismantle the traditional family structure. In 1960, the FDA approved the first oral contraceptive (Enovid), leading to an increase in sex without parenthood. In Griswold\u00a0<\/em>v.\u00a0Connecticut\u00a0<\/em>(1965), the Supreme Court struck down laws against contraception for married couples by creating a constitutional \u201cright to privacy,\u201d premised on a previously unknown \u201cpenumbra\u201d of constitutional rights. In Baird <\/em>v. Eisenstadt\u00a0<\/em>(1972), the Court extended this right of privacy to any individual, without regard to marital status, by legalizing contraception for all persons. However, to overcome any failures of contraception, the Court shortly thereafter determined that abortion would become a viable second option to avert the birth of a child.<\/p>\n

Recognizing that contraception alone would not necessarily prevent conception, in the very next year, Roe <\/em>v. Wade\u00a0<\/em>and Doe <\/em>v. Bolton\u00a0<\/em>(1973) fundamentally deconstructed human sexuality by separating procreative behavior from procreation. The Supreme Court further extended the right to privacy by striking down state laws against abortion. The Court thus either reinforced or created a cultural momentum toward the deconstruction of marriage and family (to which the creation of \u201cno-fault divorce\u201d in 1970 also contributed.)<\/p>\n

Of course, the idea of abolishing the procreative family<\/a> as a social unit is an ancient one, going back to Plato\u2019s Republic<\/em> and reappearing at intervals through history. However, it has truly gained momentum since the 1960s. Sex became a recreational activity thanks to people like Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who helped radically change the social values and mores of America. \u201cThe percentage (of American adults) who believed premarital sex among adults<\/a> was \u2018not wrong at all\u2019 was 29 percent in the early 1970s, 42 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, 49 percent in the 2000s, and 58 percent between 2010 and 2012.\u201d The resulting narcissistic cultural climate became one of absolute individuality.<\/p>\n

The single life has now become preferred to marriage (as has marriage without parenthood). Unmarried women now outnumber the married, and the idea of self-marriage or sologamy has begun to be reported<\/a>. \u201cLast year, the U.S. marriage rate reached a 93-year low,\u201d reported a 2015 Archives of Sexual Behavior<\/a> study. \u201cWith more Americans spending more of their young adulthood unmarried, they have more opportunities to engage in sex with more partners and less reason to disapprove of non-marital sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abortion\u2019s Impact upon the African-American Community<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interestingly, as journalist Jason Riley<\/a> points out, at the time of Roe\u00a0<\/em>v. Wade\u00a0<\/em>\u201cblacks were less likely than whites to support abortion.\u201d However, a 2017 Pew Research Center survey now shows blacks as the leading proponents of abortion rights, with 62 percent favoring legal abortion.<\/p>\n

According to Riley,<\/p>\n

Social scientists aren\u2019t sure why black attitudes toward abortion have changed. One theory is that as more blacks migrated out of the conservative Deep South and settled in other regions of the country with more liberal views on reproductive rights, their attitudes changed accordingly. Another possibility is that people with higher incomes and more education tend to be pro-choice, and since the early 1970s the socioeconomic status of blacks has increased dramatically.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Most liberals reject these explanations, countering that black women are more likely than women of other races to live in poverty<\/a>. Citing poverty as the driving factor, liberal advocates for abortion, such as the Guttmacher Institute<\/a>, point to inadequate access to health care in the black community as a consequence of its poverty and the cause of its high abortion rates.<\/p>\n

Pro-life leaders in the black community disagree. Observing that \u201cthe most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb,\u201d<\/a> they argue that abortion (often referred to as \u201cpopulation control\u201d) is \u201cthe most institutionalized form of racism\u201d<\/a> in America. The Rev. Walter Hoye<\/a>, founder of the Issues for Life Foundation, points out the ominous implications of the high black abortion rate. He warns that because the black fertility rate is well below the replacement rate of 2.1, \u201cwithin a few decades, African-Americans may well be an endangered species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, pro-life advocates have consistently argued that blacks have been specifically targeted by the abortion industry. After all, in 1939, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, stated her desire to \u201cexterminate the Negro population.\u201d<\/a> In fact, research<\/a> done a few years ago by the Life Issues Institute found that \u201c79 percent of abortion-offering Planned Parenthood facilities are within walking distance of black or Hispanic neighborhoods,\u201d and \u201c62 percent are near black neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n