The reliably pro-abortion New York Times is carrying an article today about anti-abortion activists pointing out an inconvenient truth:
Across the country, the anti-abortion movement, long viewed as almost exclusively white and Republican, is turning its attention to African-Americans and encouraging black abortion opponents across the country to become more active.
A new documentary, written and directed by Mark Crutcher, a white abortion opponent in Denton, Tex., meticulously traces what it says are connections among slavery, Nazi-style eugenics, birth control and abortion, and is being regularly screened by black organizations…
Data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that black women get almost 40 percent of the country’s abortions, even though blacks make up only 13 percent of the population. Nearly 40 percent of black pregnancies end in induced abortion, a rate far higher than for white or Hispanic women.
One of the things thought not polite to talk about is that is that legal abortion may in fact have done more to reduce the rate of violent crime than all of our gun control laws, expanded police hiring and street corner patrolling could have done. As the authors of Freakonomics point out, unwanted children born into unfortunate circumstances have better than even odds of becoming socially problematic.
Still, as Levitt and Dubner point out in a rather chilling mental exercise that permits an intellectual gray area between “fetus is valueless/fetus is valuable”, this may be poor economy (no pun intended):
There are roughly 1.5 million abortions in the United States every year. For a person who believes that 1 newborn is worth 100 fetuses, those 1.5 million abortions would translate – dividing 1.5 million by 100 – into the equivalent of a loss of 15,000 human lives. Fifteen thousand lives: that happens to be about the same number of people who die in homicides in the United States every year. And it is far more than the number of homicides eliminated each year due to legalized abortion. So even for someone who considers a fetus to be worth only one-hundredth of a human being, the trade-off between higher abortion and lower crime is, by an economist’s reckoning, terribly inefficient.
The reckoning varies, of course, depending upon the fractional value assigned to an unborn human life.
But back to the Times:
Black opponents of abortion are fond of saying that black people were anti-abortion and anti-birth control early on, pointing to Marcus Garvey’s conviction that blacks could overcome white supremacy through reproduction, and black militants who protested family planning clinics.
But that is only half the picture, scholars say. Black women were eager for birth control even before it was popularized by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and black doctors who provided illegal abortions were lauded as community heroes.
Perhaps: Sanger is an inconvenient icon for all concerned. She was a “negative eugenicist“, who lectured, among other places, to the female auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan (she was well received).
But the main issue is that the Times here is conflating “birth control” with “abortion” so subtly that most of the newspaper’s readers won’t notice. But while abortion is certainly a kind of birth control, it wasn’t what the sainted Sanger had in mind:
(In) her 1938 autobiography, Sanger notes that her 1916 opposition to abortion was based on the taking of life: “To each group we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way—no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.
At issue here is one of those things that Times readers don’t like to think about in their Manhattan lofts and San Fransisco salons, when they congratulate themselves on their assumed superiority: Pro-abortion activists are mainly members of the white, educated elite, yet the burden (or effect, if you prefer) of their enthusiasms falls disproportionately on the shoulders of a disadvantaged race, one whose interests they pretend to foster.
It’s not quite right, any of it.
The black comedian and political activist Dick Gregory, whose comedy has also been laced with highly political commentary, has long claimed since the early sixties even prior to Roe v. Wade that the “family planning” movement (let alone abortion) was foisted off on the black community by whites as a form of genocidal control. It shows the power and mind-set of the MSM that this message has long been successfully buried to a large extent such that few people connect the logical dots and call out the pro-abortion/”choice” advocates on this very point, and force them to defend the effect of outcomes on the black community.
You can’t keep the needy needing you, if they aren’t needy. The Progressives consider blacks to be untermenchen, no matter what they claim. Actions speak far louder than words.
re: Freakonomics
John Lott disagrees with those authors. Does a credible of job in “Freedomnomics” of showing how that analysis was 180 out.
Lott argues abortion increased likely crime rates in that time frame. Convincingly argued, I might add.
I think The Bell Curve was the source of linking abortion to crime rates, wasn’t it?
It was Freakonomics. Never mind.
Ummmm, okay. How does a higher abortion rate cause crime rates to increase?
An emotionally charged issue which will continue to polarize. I was astounded to see such a large % for minorities as well as the 1 newborn=100 fetuses statistic. If you watch this you’ll probably come away with a higher ratio. Say maybe one to one?
Sorry. Meant “different” ratio.
This immediately made me think of the new Planned Parenthood abortion supercenter smack dab in the middle of a heavily minority section of Houston. But the demand for abortion in the black community is not because abortion is available, it’s because there has been a movement away from Christianity by blacks.
Historically, blacks have been religious. Attend church on Sundays, sing in the choir, respect your elders, etc. That legacy has been shot to hell by the devastation of drugs in the black community and the rise of gansta hip/hop thug culture as the “new” religion. A religion that debases and degrades women. A religion that promotes getting as much sex as possible from the “bitches” as you can. A new religion that entices black youth away from a christian morality that was prevalent 2 generations ago. The new moral examples are no longer an eloquent, passionate minister, but professional black athletes sowing their seed in as many women as possible or rappers with a crib full of compliant hoes.
There is also the fact that black leadership: the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons, Shiela Jackson Lees, the Maxine Waters, have aligned themselves politically with the left in exchange for power. A left led by those loft and salon dwellers who view abortion as the holy grail of progressivism. The black community might finally be awakening to the fact that J.C. Watts and his ilk ain’t that bad after all.
As to Levitt and Dubner; Some good Christian, two parent upbringings would do wonders for all those future criminals. That should be the number 1 goal for the black community.
The late 19th century anti-abortion movement was a eugenics one pushed by white male doctors trying to establish the new specialty of obstetrics. It was believed that middle class WASP women had successfully reduced the size of their families through the use of chemical abortifacients. The power structure feared that god-fearing protestants would be outbred by the masses of Catholic immigrants and freed African Americans. Outlawing of abortion was to increase the reproduction of the right white women. At the same time, the Eugencis movement used abortion and sterilization forcefully on black and immigrant women. None of this is straight forward, but what is a continuing theme is that the government has long tried to interfere with women’s bodies to its own end.
Laurie? Please explain how outlawing abortion would reduce the numbers of children from Catholic immigrants and instead allow middle class WASP women who’d reduced their family sizes to maintain
control over the reins of power.
Because near as I can tell the claim is abortion was outlawed to make WASP women reproduce more, which is sort of silly since they’re the ones who can pay for abortions while the people they want to out-vote can’t and hence they’re merely forcing an increase in the voter roles against their interests.
Sorry, your claim doesn’t pass the smell test.
– Max
I find it odd that the words used in this discussion are ones of victims and puppeteers when it comes to the parents rather than the aborted kids. I’ve searched high and low, done my Google-Fu, near as I can tell abortion as a contraceptive is not imposed by force. It’s rather difficult for The Man to Keep
You Down if you exercise personal judgement.
Kind of reminds me of dope dealers being called pushers, as if they have to corner people in alleys and beat them up until they decide to buy heroin for the first time.
I find the abortion stats in the black community, for lack of a better term, to be more horrific because it is entirely voluntary. It’s self-destructive behavior, and it will take generations to overcome.
– Max
Max, they are dupes in a giant, society-wide con game.
Let’s start small, your example of the pusher. Starts with just some friendly talk, after a bit the pusher smokes or snorts or whatever method. Offers a taste. Might be declined. Then some social pressure is exerted ‘Hey, all your friends are doing it, doesn’t hurt them’ or something on that line. Might take several times before the mark tries the goods. And the first few times are always free. Yes, it is voluntary in so much as a person doesn’t have to cave to the social pressure, but that pressure can be pretty convincing.
Now, look at society. The Civil Rights Movement in so far as doing away with the ‘whites only colored use the back entrance’ and the ‘back of the bus’ garbage was needed. But, starting in the early 60s it was twisted from exposing and eliminating inequality to preaching perpetual victimhood. And that as victims they can never be equal. But, if they put on the shackles of the slavery of victimhood, then the oppressors can be made to support them. Then, as victims, they can’t be responsible for their situation in life. Not their fault they are poor, can’t find a job, don’t do well in schools, etc. It is all someone elses fault.
What I don’t understand is how many blacks embrace Islam, while decrying slavery. They don’t know their own history. The black slave trade started (actually still starts) with blacks selling other blacks to (mostly) Muslim Arab slavers. I pointed that out to one guy and he got this most curious look on his face, like his whole world suddenly turned upside down.
It’s always astounded me that blacks could side so firmly with the liberal Democrats. They just can’t see that everything these rich white liberals do is designed to bind them to the Democrat party and to keep them smack where ther are at. One Democrat loyalist and friend of mine (who is black)went full stop when I asked him to find one liberal Democrat white Congressperson who is married to a black person or who has children that married to a black person. He still hasn’t come up with an example. And as long as he can’t, I’ll continue to point out that the Democrats are the party of hypocrisy.
Oh you’re so VERY,VERY wrong, Byron, Democrats absolutely LOVE Blacks, they truly, really, really do……as groups….who vote. Silly you…..
Snark aside, Byron, just off the top of my head I can think of 5 elected GOP Congressmen–Sen & Rep–either currently serving or recently former–who are married to blacks or asians. And that’s just at the national level. As you say, the other side? Hummmm………..
And that’s the point: Democrats discovered during LBJs time that by firmly binding the blacks to “entitlements” like MedicAid and various other programs would create a firm voting block that on the one hand always vote Democrat and on the other provide a club to beat the Republicans with whenevery they argued against any sort of entitlement program. Worst damn hypocrits ever.
And does anyone remember when civil rights legislation was being argued, that a large number of white Democrats loudly argued against it? Down south, the ones that argued for were known as “Boll-weevil Democrats”.
New religion is on the way for black america and white lefties.
Pushed by Van Jones and Soros and friends through NAACP and center for american progress plus ayers and stern through SEIU and other unions.
And our education system.
Obama and friends are providing years of funding. Needs to be made public so voters make intelligent decisions.
First, I doubt if ANYone is “pro-abortion.” NObody likes it, including, as I understand it, the mothers who find themselves having abortions. But they do want the right to have one.
Second, re Lex’s last quote by Sanger endorsing contraception instead of abortion: I think anti-abortion rights folks would have more credibility if so many of them weren’t so totally anti-sex. They oppose contraception and sex education as strongly as they oppose abortions. They seem to think ignorance is bliss.
George-
There’s a big difference between being “anti-sex” and having a moral view of sex.
I would daresay that many, if not most, of the anti-abortion crowd have some sort of religious background (Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, etc,) that influences their thinking on the subject. To us (for I include myself among them), sex outside of marriage is immoral. The fact that it happens – frequently – in no way affects the morality of it; something doesn’t become “right” just b/c everyone’s doing it, right? I’m not opposed to either contraception OR sex education – but I would protest if my daughter was given free condoms or birth control pills at school without my knowledge/consent and/or taught how to use them in a classroom. My kids won’t be ignorant of the subject – for I will teach them myself. But giving them the knowledge without a framework to understand/apply it is a grievous wrong. Since you’re against ignorance, would you give your child a handgun and show them ONLY how to load and shoot it without explaining the dangers and how to be safe with it? Didn’t think so.
As others have said, there are people (pretty far out of the mainstream) who identify themselves as “Pro-Abortion.” Ever heard of an Abortion Party? A bunch of women get together and someone gets a DNC performed on them to show the rest of the group how simple and easy an abortion can be.
Of course, the mirror image are people blowing up abortion clinics. Whacko extremists on both sides.
Ah, the “no one is pro-abortion’ twist. Then why is it pushed so hard as the easy alternative? Try this:
“Pro-choice” is a meaningless cop out. Choice in what? Type of car? What to have for dinner? What kind of gun to buy? (funny thing how so many ‘pro-choice’ advocates what to take away ANY choice in that matter and write a Constitutional protection out of existence). So what exactly is the ‘choice’ that you are ‘pro-’? It is ABORTION. Plain and simple. THAT is what your ‘pro-choice’ stance mean. That you favor abortion on demand. That you favor schools who can’t give a kid an aspirin without 20 forms filled out by the parents being able to help arrange for a 14 year old to get an abortion (gee, there is that nasty word again) without the parents consent.
Anti-sex? How about ‘anti-promiscuity’ instead? How about wanting people to show a bit of restraint and not act like rutting beasts? Or maybe just wanting people to take on some small measure of personal responsibility?
The expression “pro-choice” is a clever semantic trick, introduced by the advocates of early pregnancy termination, because “pro-abortion” wasn’t winning enough supporters. It’s like the semantic shift from the term “benefits” to the term “entitlements.” As far as core definitions go, “benefits” has the connotation that these are favors granted by a generous organization [which is in good financial condition] to its employees or citizens. “Entitlements,” on the other hand, implies a ‘right’ to receive these emoluments, whether the organization granting them is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy or not.
A study of semantics is absolutely necessary to the understanding of politics and the twisty operators who practice it.
Marianne, who is feeling cynical today.
I thought Steve Sailer had exploded that Freakonomics proposition about the effects of abortion on crime rates.
That aside, I find the idea of “negative eugenics” right creepy, hanging out on the ‘net as I do with a lot of autistic folks. People with trisomy-21 are few and far between these days, due to amniocentesis and elective abortion. I betcha the smart, very earnest socially awkward folks, who rock, are next.
I have not yet reproduced, and judging by my age, financial situation, and (lack of) social skills, it looks like I ain’t ever gonna do that. I think of people who can do that, and have (almost) done that, and abort the process, and I think, WTF? Why are they throwing away the chance to pass on their own individual particular whateverness?
P.s. Edit. That would be better as “chance to transmit their own individual…”
Saying pro-choice is the same as pro-abortion is like saying those who are pro-first ammendment are really pro-vulgarity and pro-racial slurs because they feel that people should have the freedom to say those things.
The high rate of abortions in black communities has nothing to do with eugenics and likely has everything to do with socio-economic status, lack of education, poor parenting and lack of opportunity that is the legacy of poverty. Bet you’d find the same thing in poor white communities.
Dare I say that any woman in desperate circumstances such as poverty, drug addiction, prostitution, and no father in the picture might choose abortion more often. Unfortunately many of those women are minorities.
Those are fair points on the main, KR, but when it comes to the article of eugenics, I reserve the right to quibble on the edges, citing Margaret Sanger.
But I wonder – and I presume nothing, although I believe there is significant overlap in the Venn diagram between those who agitate for an unlimited degree of access to abortion on demand and those who agitate for other Great Society initiatives – whether those who fall into the overlapping sphere feel any twinge of guilt for the fact that so many of the social pathologies you touch on are the result of well-intentioned but ultimately destructive policies intended to ameliorate the condition of underprivileged citizens but which instead hastened the demise of family support structures.
Underclass families of color were traditionally strong, until government avidly subsidized their dissolution.
For their own good, of course.
Hello,
Well, at least the conversation on this issue is still civil. Nice job, everyone!
Mr. George P:
I agree with you 100% in that most of the people who are anti-choice are also anti-sex. I’m pretty much lke this: what goes on between consenting adults is no one elses’ business. These social/theocons want their personal religious views imposed on all of us by the use of the Federal gov’t. Yet the clear majority of these social/theocons are GOP, which claims to be for “limited” gov’t. Limited gov’t means just that – keep your nose out of other peoples’ business.
Mr. MajHarvey:
One’s moral view of sex can come from a wide range. Whose view should prevail? On this, I would say again: what goes on between consenting adults is no one elses’ business. Keep the gov’t, at any level, out of it.
General comment:
I prefer the term anti-choice as that is truly what these people stand for. Once the kid is born, well it’s tough luck and the young girl is on her own.
I quite agree there are people on both ends of the political spectrum who fully fit the term ‘anti-choice’. As I see it, you have theocratic fascists on the right, and thought police politically correct fascists on the left. I have no use for either.
Rambling done.
Phalanx08
Lex, agree with you that the victim mentality of minorities has not helped but hurt. I love the way Bill Cosby puts it. I am all for more personal responsibility and more people pulling themselves up instead of blaming the system. However, at the same time, I feel so privledged for what I have not earned, specifically a middle class family that cared about education and instilled values such as hard work, perserverance and responsibility. I was adopted and can really see how things could be so very different. For those that aren’t coming from privledge due to a legacy of poverty, how do we help them realize their potential? I feel like we are losing whole inner city communities to a cycle of poverty. I really don’t think it is reasonable to say these folks have equal opportunity. I don’t think quotas and the like are the right way, but somehow the cycle has to be ended and I think there will have to be some government involvement in this.
Specifically what social programs do you think have led to a continuing the cycle? How do we fix it without regulating morality or infringing on freedoms (I find myself a libertarian with a bit of a liberal streak when it comes to social programs).
I just hate it when folks seem to be saying, ‘hey, I got mine, screw you’ or ‘you’re just not working hard enough. I worked for mine, you’re just lazy’. Plenty of lazy folks out there. But what happens when we allow them to fail and they fail their children and the cycle continues? Just don’t think everyone starts out at the same place.
Totally goes against my libertarian streak, but some times I wish there were a qual card to have children!
Whatever your view about abortion, gotta think that there is nothing eugenics like about making sure birth control is cheaply available (like Planned Parenthood does) to folks in poverty, drug addicted, and anyone else that would make poor parents due to whatever physical, emotional and financial reasons.
KR, you have a very well thought out argument, but I have to take exception with your second to the last sentence. (But what happens when we allow them to fail…)Way back in the olden days if a person in a community was “failing” family, friends, neighbors etc. stepped in and helped as much as possible. Somewhere along the line it became the governments job to save everyone, and we are much the poorer for it. Every time the government starts a program to “end poverty in our time..” a decade later there are more folks below the poverty line and a larger gap between the haves and have-nots. We’re not allowing them to fail, the government took it away from us.
If you want a conservative African-Americans point of view, check out Thomas Sowell. He blames the black Civil rights Workers like Jesse Jackson for a lot of the poverty problems that the minorities have, since they’ve been taught that it’s everyone’s fault but their own.
Hate to say it, but I guess I don’t have that much faith in folks. I think its a great idea, but society has evolved (regardless of whether we like where we are and where we are going or not) and we no longer have the family or community atachments that we use to. And those folks caught in this cycle of poverty, violence and poor parenting don’t have the family or community to rely on because the support folks aren’t any better off.
I guess I just don’t believe that if government just stepped out of social programs, private citzens would just fill the gap. Besides I guess in the end, I really do believe that it is a role of the government to provide (or make sure that private charities are providing and that it is available to all- even the lazy and the irresponsible) for the very basic welfare of its citizens such as schools, fire, police, and yes…basic health care and food and shelter, if needed. I don’t think this is an area where we can leave it up to society and private charity and hope we don’t fail.
KR, Cuba promises all that you ask for.
Just a guess, but I think that Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Payne, Madison and their peers might disagree with you.
Leave taking care of you up to “the Government”, and it surely will, quite happily.
If things are broken, fix them: the fix should be done by the people, not “the government”.
I would agree that Society has changed; not sure I would agree that it has evolved.
So which services do you believe should NOT be provided by the government. ‘People’ have had all the chances to ‘fix’ this and haven’t. Do you really think if government just steps out, the people will fix this? I’m not for socialism and I don’t think a basic government safety net isn’t socialism, its a reasonable protection in a capitalistic society. Do you really believe that capitalism without regulation and protections is a pretty thing – that we are really so altruistics that we will do the right thing?
Underpass in Sacramento. 20 year old woman raving her heart out at nothing. Carrying on a screamed conversation with God. Loosed onto the streets and by decree there is nothing that anybody now can do for her.
KR, for my own part I think the damage is done, and it may well be irreparable. Out of the best intentions, Wise Government Bureaucrats tried to step in and ameliorate the condition of a historically disadvantaged race. Their efforts incentivized both the destruction of nuclear families and the birth of untold numbers of unwanted, uncared for babies that have become social liabilities. We now have multi-generational nuclei that have never had an honest job, nor ever known anyone who had and who have no prospect of contributing to society. They are transgenerationally dependent upon the handouts of others, a situation which facilitates further dependencies and encodes a sense of enduring victimhood/helplessness while enabling race pimps and hustlers who pretend to speak for them while lining their own pockets.
A few years later the Wise Government Bureaucrats either intentionally or otherwise enabled the wholesale slaughter of their innocents.
You could maybe color that the law of unintended consequences. Me?
I say it’s not quite right, any of it.
One watches all the films and video of that MLK generation. The men wear white shirts, ties, hats and jackets.
Those damned social engineers didn’t just ruin a generation with their tinkering, they ruined a whole society.
“Anti-abortionists are anti-sex” has got to be one of the most bigoted statements I’ve heard recently. That someone can say that with a straight face implies to me that they are either truly hateful or that they are stunningly ignorant and arrogant in regard to those who think sex is wonderful and powerful and so choose to be very careful how they use it.
(Kudos to those who haven’t risen to the bait, but I felt like that line shouldn’t go unchallenged).