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Abortion rate disparities among Black women: I'm pro-choice but can't ignore statistics

Getty Israel
Guest columnist

Pro-choice people like me often decry the rates of premature births and infant mortality among Black babies while remaining silent about the abortion rate disparities among Black women. 

Even though Black women represent a smaller proportion of Mississippi’s population, their average five-year (2015-2019) pregnancy rate is 11% higher than that of white women, according to statistics from the Mississippi State Department of Health. Consequently, the live birth rate of Black babies is equal to that of white babies in the state because so many Black pregnancies are aborted.

Getty Israel

There were over 97,909 pregnancies among Black women during the period; 17% of those pregnancies (16,696) were aborted. In the present Black Lives Matter era, there is no better benchmark to measure the value of Black lives.

If Black lives really matter, then liberals must address the underlying factors driving abortion rates. The adverse impact in years of potential Black lives lost strongly indicates that it is the most significant occurrence for Black people. Black disparities in abortion rates should be equally appalling as infant mortality.

Black women should maintain their constitutional right to decide when to carry a pregnancy to term. However, I would be remiss to continue ignoring the disproportionately high abortion rates among my group, which I believe is inevitably detrimental to us as a people. Black high abortion rates don’t merely affect Black women; rather, it negatively impacts Black people by diminishing our growth rate, which has long-term implications.

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Since Sisters in Birth began offering prenatal services in Mississippi, I have engaged many pregnant Black women, some of whom were contemplating abortion and whose minds I was able to change. I learned that most are working one or two low-paying service jobs. Nearly none of them have the support of a husband or the child’s father, which is the top reason they contemplate an abortion.   

Black women are far less likely to cohabitate or be married during pregnancy and birth.  In Hinds County, over 50% of the households are headed by single mothers with children under 18 years of age, according to the U.S. Census, 2010.  Among married women, the five-year average pregnancy and live birth rates of white women is three times higher than that of Black women. Conversely, the five-year average abortion and fetal death (death of the fetus that occurs at a minimum of 20 weeks gestation) rates among single Black women is twice that of single white women.

Poverty, limited access to medical care, and effective birth control are important factors in reproductive health outcomes, but so is emotional, social, and financial support from the father. The father’s involvement can significantly influence a woman’s decision to carry a pregnancy to term and birth and breastfeeding outcomes. 

Racism during the 1960s and '70s did not discourage my father from fulfilling his role as a husband and father. He did not have access to federal aid, college, or trade school, but he worked two and three low-paying jobs to ensure that my siblings and I did obtain an education. He partnered with my mother, who worked part-time as a maid cleaning the homes of white families, to provide for our family.

Why shouldn’t Black women expect the same from today’s Black men who have access to many more opportunities, who could partner with Black women to lift Black children in Mississippi out of poverty, which is the highest in the nation, according to the Children's Defense Fund.  

In addition to reducing premature births and infant mortality rates, Sisters in Birth will focus on reducing abortion rates among Black women within its new women’s health clinic, opening in Jackson in June. We will provide strong social and emotional support and holistic health care, subsidized and/or free postpartum care to mothers after their Medicaid benefits end, will ensure that clients receive adequate family planning counseling and the most effective form of birth control, and will provide educational and professional development counseling.

Our mission is neither political nor religious; it’s public health.

Getty Israel is founder and executive director of Sisters in Birth Inc. in Jackson.