"Womb Lynchings." Really.
The New York Times reports on a new anti-choice tactic, which is to approach the African American community and point out the disproportionate amount of African American women who seek abortions (40% of abortions in the US.) Anti-choice groups have dubbed it "womb lynchings."
I won't contest that whenever a conversation about reproductive rights or birth control comes up, the topic of eugenies is sure to follow. Jezebel.com has a good round up of blogs arguing that problems with equating abortion to black genocide include infantilizing black women, the false assumption that women need less reproductive rights, and the distraction from the real issue: unplanned pregnancy. The idea that women of color are gullible and have fallen for some alleged genocide conspairacy, is frankly, insulting.
Today an email I got from Amnesty International reminded me that in the United States "one in five women of reproductive age" have no health insurance. And that " African-American women are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women. In high-risk pregnancies, the disparities are even greater; African-American women are five and a half times more likely to die than white women."
If you want to talk to use words like "genocide" and "lynching" to describe access to or lack of access to health care, then explain why people who are so concerned about the 'unborn' are making no moves to protect their mothers? Why is there this discrepancy in health care? And why should women with no health insurance, access to prenatal care, or desire to have children be forced to bring life threatening pregnancies to term?
I won't contest that whenever a conversation about reproductive rights or birth control comes up, the topic of eugenies is sure to follow. Jezebel.com has a good round up of blogs arguing that problems with equating abortion to black genocide include infantilizing black women, the false assumption that women need less reproductive rights, and the distraction from the real issue: unplanned pregnancy. The idea that women of color are gullible and have fallen for some alleged genocide conspairacy, is frankly, insulting.
Today an email I got from Amnesty International reminded me that in the United States "one in five women of reproductive age" have no health insurance. And that " African-American women are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women. In high-risk pregnancies, the disparities are even greater; African-American women are five and a half times more likely to die than white women."
If you want to talk to use words like "genocide" and "lynching" to describe access to or lack of access to health care, then explain why people who are so concerned about the 'unborn' are making no moves to protect their mothers? Why is there this discrepancy in health care? And why should women with no health insurance, access to prenatal care, or desire to have children be forced to bring life threatening pregnancies to term?