Abortion advocates argue that minorities need abortion

The U.S. House of Representatives last fall passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that “prohibits governmental restrictions on the provision of, and access to, abortion services.” 

Specifically, the bill provides that “governments may not limit a provider’s ability to prescribe certain drugs, offer abortion services via telemedicine, or immediately provide abortion services when the provider determines a delay risks the patient’s health.”

The bill is not likely to pass in the Senate, where it faces challenges from Republicans and moderate Democrats, but that hasn’t stopped pro-abortion advocates from treating it like one of the last chances to save women’s rights in the United States. 

This week, “This Is Us” actress Milana Vayntrub wrote in an op-ed for the Daily Beast that this legislation is “critical.” Vayntrub shared her own abortion story, arguing that for those with less privilege than she, abortions can be difficult to obtain. 

“Marginalized Americans have always been the most impacted by racist and classist reproductive policies throughout history,” she writes. “Abortion restrictions disproportionately harm those already most vulnerable in our country—from Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities to young people, immigrants, those living in poverty, and rural areas.”

 This is simply not true. In the United States, 38% of abortions are obtained by black women versus 33% by white women. (Hispanic mothers make up 21% of those who obtain abortions, while indigenous and other peoples make up 7%.) 

 On top of that, this means black babies are some of those most harmed by abortion—and minority populations most reduced by it—an intent some abortion activists have had from the start. 

As explained in the Fall 2021 of Human Life Review, early birth control advocates like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and British activist Marie Stopes had specifically eugenic and racist reasons for supporting contraception and abortion. In fact, Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson admitted in a New York Times op-ed last year, “Sanger spoke to the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan at a rally in New Jersey to generate support for birth control.” These racist origins draw concern, when we realize that 79% of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are within walking distance of minority neighborhoods, according to a 2012 study by Protecting Black Life.

Far from helping minority communities, abortion shrinks and weakens them. As the Women’s Health Protection Act and similar bills make their way through Congress, pro-abortion advocates will continue to rely on the narrative that free access to abortion is necessary to uplift marginalized communities. The truth is quite the opposite.