By Joseph D. Lyons, bustle.com
Donald Trump’s comments on abortion are unbelievable; his idea that women should be punished is just terrible. It would create injustice for every woman in America, but it’s even worse than you realize. That’s because Trump’s abortion ban wouldn’t affect every woman equally — assuming that abortions continued as they do today. Just like America’s discriminatory drug laws have unfairly targeted black men, this ban would likely send a disproportional number of black women to prison, furthering our country’s problem of mass incarceration of minority citizens.
As Jamil Smith, a senior national correspondent at MTV News, tweeted, race is a necessary lens through which America must look at Trump’s argument. According to the CDC, black women have the highest abortion rate in the country currently at about 28 per 1000 women. That’s way higher than non-Hispanic white women, who only account for about eight per 1000. Hispanic women also see a higher rate, about 15 per 1000. So if minority women keep having abortions at higher rates than white women, they would probably be “punished” at a higher rate as well — especially when you consider that minorities are already prosecuted at higher rates than whites for the same crimes.
Given how much the abortion debate is about black and Latina women, Trump’s remarks should be examined as a promotion of mass incarceration.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) March 30, 2016
The reasons for the disparity in abortion rates are many, according to experts. Christine Dehlendorf, a professor who specializes in reproductive health research at the University of California, San Francisco tells The Atlantic that it’s about inequality — particularly money. “Structural determinants,” like income inequality, racism, and differences in opportunity, all play a role.
In addition to economic factors, studies show that black and Latina women receive less comprehensive sexual health education than their white peers do — even in the same income bracket. There’s also a mistrust of some contraceptives due to historical experiments designed to limit minority births. Sterilization abuse of black women and Latinas by the medical establishment occurred many times in the 20th century — and happened as recently as 2010 in California prisons.
These reasons and probably more could explain the difference in the abortion rate (which actually has decreased in recent years). But no matter the reason, making abortions illegal is not the answer (as some black pro-life groups also argue). Imprisoning women for doing so would be reprehensible. Mass incarceration has already devastated communities around the country, and adding to the prison population will not be the solution.
We take Trump’s misogyny for granted, but his suggestion that men bear no legal responsibility for abortions in his scenario is poisonous.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) March 30, 2016
In a time when past injustices are finally being discussed in the media and on the campaign trail thanks to organizations like Black Lives Matter, it’s important to condemn Trump’s rhetoric of all kinds, against women and against minorities. In this case, his comments intersect to specifically hurt minority women, a group that simply can’t afford to be maligned any more.
