Abortion Threatens to Reduce the Number of African-Americans

Well, no. Not really. The genius that is Alan Keyes doesn’t understand birth statistics.

African-American birth rates are much higher than white non-hispanic birth rates. In 2000 the rate for white/non-hispanic, there were 58.5 births per 1000 women

In 2000 there were 71.4 births for every 1000 women.

In the population as a whole: 65.9 births for every 1000 women.

IOW, Alan doesn’t get it . Again. African-American pregnacy rates are quite high–that’s largely a factor of socio-economic status with higher SES leading to lower rates of pregnancy, and lower rates of abortion. If you want to reduce abortion rates, one way to do it is to ensure communities are economically doing well.

Now, a consistent person with Keyes position would be railing against the number of fetal losses as well which is higher than for whites. But Keyes wouldn’t notice because he looks at the percentage of total births in his stat–not the number per 1000 women of a category.

It’s just an incredibly stupid mistake to make. Just because there is a terribly high rate of abortion in the African-American community, doesn’t mean that per woman, there aren’t more children being born. It’s basic math, and Alan Keyes flunks again.

Abortion is a tough issue for many people, but it doesn’t help to have people like Keyes spouting about it and not having the first clue as to what he is saying.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *