Vast Majority Of Women Affected By Alabama, Georgia Laws Are Black

The majority of women who obtain abortions in Georgia and Alabama are black, making black women the primary demographic affected by 2019 abortion legislation, data show.

Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation on reported legal abortions reveal that 60% of the reported legal abortions in the state of Alabama in 2015 were obtained by black women. Similarly, 66% of reported legal abortions in the state of Georgia in 2015 were obtained by black women.

The data include reported legal abortions only for legal residents of the states reported. The number of abortions obtained by black women is not included in the Kaiser Family Foundation data, as the data reveal only the number of women who obtained abortions. This indicates that the data make no account for variations such as abortions performed on twins.

Both Georgia and Alabama passed highly restrictive abortion legislation in 2019. Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a “fetal heartbeat bill” in March that will go into effect January 1, 2020, criminalizing abortions in Georgia after a fetal heartbeat is detected. The bill makes exceptions in cases of rape and incest and when the mother’s health is at risk, but only if the mother first files a police report.

Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey also signed H.B. 314 into law Wednesday. The Alabama law, which will take effect in six months, is the most restrictive abortion law in the United States and is a near-total ban on abortions. The law makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest but would make an exception if the mother’s health was in serious danger.

The Kaiser data coincide with pro-life advocates’ past claims that the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood target African-American populations.

Ohio Democratic state Rep. Janine R. Boyd proposed an amendment targeting black women to her state’s heartbeat bill in April, saying that black women should have access to abortion even when white women do not because of historical “rape and forced birth imposed on enslaved women.” The Ohio heartbeat bill banned abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

The Radiance Foundation also expressed concerns regarding Planned Parenthood’s Ohio abortion billboards targeting black communities.

“When Ohio’s largest abortion facility, located in a Cleveland, decided to target predominantly African-American neighborhoods with billboards pushing abortion in communities already ravaged by death, we had to respond,” Radiance Foundation Chief Creative Officer Ryan Bomberger told The Daily Caller News Foundation in May 2018. “Our coalition of black and white, Left and Right, denounces the systemic racism that is endemic in an industry birthed in the vile pseudoscience of eugenics,” he added.

Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation show that 52% of legal abortions obtained in Ohio in 2015 were obtained by white women, while 42% of legal abortions were obtained by black women.

And in an April 2018 PBS Frontline video, “Anti-abortion Crusaders: Inside the African-American Abortion Battle,” New Calvary Baptist Church Senior Pastor Rev. Clenard Childress Jr. said that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger came up with “The Negro Project” to reduce the number of blacks via sterilization and abortion.

“We need more African-Americans informed on the best kept secret in America,” Childress said, “that is black genocide via the targeting of African Americans by the abortion industry.”