The Quiet Racism of Abortion Bans

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/the-quiet-racism-of-abortion-bans/261665/

As national Republicans in Tampa consider adding have added a ban on abortions as an official plank in their party platform -- a proposal whose draft language is so severe, it doesn't make exceptions for cases of rape or incest -- liberal commentators have grown accustomed to speaking of the right's strict stance on reproductive issues as a war on women. But it might be more accurate to say that it's really an attack on women of a specific stripe: those from disadvantaged minorities and the poor.

What would happen if the GOP got its way and control over abortion rights were returned to the states? A new study by researchers at Yale University and the City University of New York, published in NBER, imagines how overturning Roe v. Wade might play out.




Using analyses that predicted which states might be likeliest to ban abortion if they could, the scientists established a set of hypothetical scenarios and compared them to actual abortion data from both the pre- and the post-Roe v. Wade era. The researchers estimate that if 31 anti-abortion states made the procedure illegal tomorrow, the national abortion rate would drop by 14.9 percent. In a more extreme example, banning abortion in 46 states -- while preserving it in places where reproductive rights enjoy constitutional protection -- would result in the abortion rate falling 29 percent.

But whatever you make of those topline numbers, one thing seems certain: an abortion ban would disproportionately affect women from non-white and low-income backgrounds.

[ZombieHorde]

1. That may be the result, but I don't think that is the motivation. nt

[ellenfl]

2. thus more quickly increasing the non-white population. be careful what you wish for. eom