Last January, two days after the inauguration of the man an entire nation is counting on to pull its collective ass out of the fire, the US observed the anniversary of another seminal moment in history: the 1972 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
Naturally, Bryan Fischer could not let such a fortuitous near-conjunction pass without comment, so he weighed in with the puzzling title: "Obama Will Set Black Civil Rights Back Years."
"How" you ask, "could this shiny new president possibly merit such condemnation?" Has he preemptively invaded a sovereign nation with false justification? Allowed thousands of black Americans to remain displaced and homeless in one of the richest countries in the world? Did he vomit on the Japanese Prime Minister?
No. Even worse, Obama voiced support for the Freedom of Choice Act, which expands and protects Roe v. Wade. This is a blow to the black community because, quoth Fischer, 'abortion is wiping out black babies at an astonishing rate.'
It’s all due to the evil folks at Planned Parenthood, which according to Fischer "has located more than 75% of its clinics in minority neighborhoods, almost as if they were deliberately intent on fulfilling founder Margaret Sanger’s ghoulish hopes to ‘exterminate the Negro population.’"
[Editors’ Note: Margaret Sanger actually opposed abortion. She was, however, a staunch proponent of eugenics, and given Mr. Fischer’s ideas about who can and cannot have children, we wonder if he and Ms. Sanger don’t have more in common than he thinks.]
Fischer's article is accompanied by 'a pro-life ad […] celebrating President Barack Obama's mother's decision not to abort the first black American president.' The ad offensively assumes that all black children are on the cusp of being aborted, without observing the obvious: that Stanley Ann Dunham wanted her child. There is, of course, a world of difference between a woman who happily carries to term, and one who has no choice but to complete an unwanted pregnancy.
Dear deluded Bryan: it’s not about race. It’s not about age, socioeconomic background, or even sexual orientation (although, come to think of it, gay couples probably don’t have many abortions; that's a conundrum for you!). It’s about choice, and black women have as much right to make that choice as anyone.
Fischer believes that abortion clinics are like McDonald's – you see those seductive golden arches and suddenly have to have something from the Dollar Menu. Abortions are not an impulse buy. Planned Parenthood is merely providing services where they are most needed.
If you want to reduce abortions, Bryan, how about relaxing your attitude toward contraceptive education? After all, the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization respected and cited on both sides of the choice debate, reports that "eight percent of women who have abortions have never used a method of birth control ... [while] nonuse is greatest among those who are young, poor, black, Hispanic or less educated."
Could it be, Bryan, that your opposition to contraceptive education is contributing to the number of abortions in black communities? Could it be that education and access to contraception might reduce abortion numbers across the board?
Could it be that it's not President Obama, but in fact the Idaho Values Alliance, that's working to set back black civil rights?
5 years ago
It's definitely more than a bit offensive that the subtext of his argument is "black people desire abortions more than other races." As far as the neighborhoods that abortion clinics end up in, I wouldn't be surprised at all if that statistic is fairly accurate. If you think about it, a well-off neighborhood is unlikely to want an abortion clinic nearby whereas a run-down part of town is happy to have whatever rent money they can get.
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