With the possibility that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade, Anne Flaherty turned her ABC News byline over to activists who are complaining that fewer black children will be killed by abortion.
As Flaherty informs readers in her opening paragraph, the “uncomfortable truth” that is “buried” in the data is that black women disproportionately seek to get abortions. This should be a very uncomfortable truth for the pro-choice activists and pro-abortion zealots who insist that abortion is some kind of racial justice issue. They pay lip service to anti-racism while supporting a policy that has significantly diminished the black share of the U.S. population.
But no, Flaherty doesn’t try to come to grips with that. Rather, she argues that because many black women live in the South, and specifically in states governed by Republicans, it will be harder for them to have their unborn children killed.
Flaherty then hands the narrative over to Monica Simpson, an activist who directs a group called SisterSong, which is opposing an abortion law in Georgia. According to the group’s website, “SisterSong’s mission is to strengthen and amplify the collective voices of indigenous women and women of color to achieve reproductive justice by eradicating reproductive oppression and securing human rights.”
As such, Simpson informs us that the beginning of black lives is equivalent to slavery — yes, really. It is also supposed to be comparable to painful gynecological experiments and the forced sterilization of black women. Another activist, Paris Hatcher of Black Feminist Future, claims that she will go outside the legal system to “make sure that anyone who needs an abortion” will get one “by any means.”
While Flaherty laments healthcare policies in Republican-run states, she adds that “police brutality is another factor, advocates say,” as a reason why black women would get abortions. There isn’t really any clever way to cover this one up. Abortion is just part of the liberal blob in which liberals say that all of their other favorite issues need to be discussed because they are all intertwined, even where they are obviously contradictory — i.e., one policy destroys black lives, while the other is supposed to be preserving them. The only thing missing from this piece is an explanation of how gun control and tax increases are “reproductive justice” issues.
Again, this is all being said to justify a procedure that ends a human life — and disproportionately ends black lives. Around 79% of Planned Parenthood abortion centers are located within walking distance of minority neighborhoods. In 2012 and 2013, more black children were aborted than born in New York City. This is what the activists Flaherty quotes would have you think is good and necessary. Their version of “reproductive justice” necessarily entails that black lives do not matter, but they’ll never wrap their heads around the fact.
Neither Flaherty nor the activists she dutifully parrots care about these contradictions. They just want to use racism, the one issue where decent people give some sympathy to their extreme perspectives, to browbeat their opposition, even as they embrace the racism that abortion helps perpetuate.
