Do you realize that in the black community overall right now, more babies are being aborted than are being born?
Well, no. African-American abortion rates are high and I think we can all agree we would like to see lower abortion rates amongst African-Americans, but let’s stick to the facts, in 2000 amongst African-Americans-non Hispanic
607,000 Live Births
488,000 Abortions
170,000 Fetal Losses
And since 1990, that has never been true.
My guess is the fetal loss level is low because it is self-reported–between 25 – 30 % of pregnancies result in miscarriage so my guess is that the rate reported is low–perhaps exacerbated in with a higher A-A poverty rate which would likely increase the number of miscarriages. The other factor is that some abortions would have resulted in miscarriages as well.
All that said, that is a tragic number. The idea of abortion being safe, legal and rare is that each one is the result of tragic circumstances.
Sadly, Ambassador Keyes is doing the same thing that a lot of arguers on both sides do. They intentionally intermix facts to make abortions seems much more prevalent than they are.
They take about elective abortions (the 488,000 number) but the number they will quote is 658,000 (abortions and miscarriages).
They can do this semi-truthfully because the medical definition of an abortion is any pregnancy that ends prematurely without a live birth. So, by a medical definition, there were 658,000 aborted pregnancies in 2000. However, they will throw that statistic in while discussing elective abortions.
Pro-lifers do it to show how many babies are “killed”. Pro-choicers do it to show that “abortion” is much more prevalent than it truly is.
Both sides are wrong, like so many other issues in politics.
And I think in this case, the number of abortions should shock everyone–but that always seems to be left out–what if these abortions turned into live births–what kind of lives would the kids have? That isn’t a defense of abortion, but a question as to how we handle children when born into non-ideal circumstances.
For how many of these abortions are there “tragic circumstances,” and how many are just convenient procedures for highly promiscuous people too irresponsible to take precautions?
Hence the reason for being pro-choice–I’m not in the position to determine that for every woman.
Angry E- Does “too irresponsible to take precautions” correlate well with “too irresponsible to perform parenting duties effectively”? An abortion doesn’t have to cause immense hardship for a parent to cause hardship for the child. And it’s not like there’s a vast unfulfilled demand to adopt African American babies.
Your observations are obviously those of a Slaveholder…. 🙂
OneMan
One doesn’t have to accept the hardline pro-life position to accept that having more than 20% of all pregnancies end in abortion , and nearly 40% for blacks, demonstrates that something has gone very, very wrong. It may be safe and legal, but it sure as hell isn’t rare.
Angry Elephant—are you high or something? Because I’m having a hard time figuring out what you are responding to. Are you trying to actually argue that I said abortions are rare? Because the context is pretty clear to anyone not under some sort of intoxicating substance.
Thanks for the CDC link, AP.
Here’s something to consider: the A-A pregnancy rate is much higher than the national average. As a result, the live birth rate (71.4/1,000) for A-A is higher than the national average (65.9/1,000) and much higher than for whites (58.5/1,000).
Genocide means the extermination of a race. But with birth rates higher than the national average, that word does not really describe the effect of abortions on A-A.
Sorry to sound so cold-blooded and all, but some of us don’t see it as tragic. More legal, safe abortions and fewer live births into circumstances that either can’t support or are overtly hostile to children is a good thing. It means that women are being truly responsible to themselves, to their families, and to our society, instead of giving in to misguided biological instincts and the whole cult of motherhood.
I know I’ll piss some people off here, but I’m tired of seeing this issue slide inexorably to the right.
[Warning: long comment — I got carried away. Sorry.]
Tully, I’m sure that the issue is sliding to the right. I’m pro-choice, and from everything I’ve seen AP is pro-choice too. AP will correct me if I’m wrong, but we don’t want see Roe overturned, or any restrictive laws in place. I go so far as to advocate including abortions under Medicaid.
What you are seeing, though, is a discussion of the issue as a public health issue. Every induced abortion is the result of a failure, somewhere. Mostly it’s a contraceptive failure (either failure to use or the contraceptive failed). That’s a serious public health issue even with legal, safe, and available abortions.
There’s a parallel when discussing AIDS in the gay community. It’s clear that promiscuity contributes to AIDS. Because of people like Keyes, who will take studies of promiscuity as a justification for an anti-gay agenda, public health professionals face an obstacle in containing HIV and other STIs. Take out the anti-gay bias, and you’d have an entirely different and honest conversation about gay health.
The same with unwanted pregnancy. Take out the fear that pro-life zealots will use the numbers to their advantage, and you can have a much better discussion about the failings of sex ed in high schools, the need for contraception, the effect of promiscuity on the pregnancy rate.
I think the greatest tragedy of politicizing abortion is the effect on public health debates.