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It is an undeniable fact that the decision of Supreme Court to overturn Roe Vs Wade will spark a new public health crisis, particularly for vulnerable communities. This decision would allow states to ban most abortions for the first time in nearly fifty years.
But where do black women fall in this scenario?
“Until around reconstruction, abortion was legal. It became illegal after slavery ended,” said Goler Blount, president and CEO of the Black Women's Health Imperative, a decades-old national organization focused on health equity and health and wellness of Black women.
“But those landowners, former slave owners, said, ‘Well, we've got to keep up the labor force.’ And so, abortion became illegal.”
“Black women have disproportionately the greatest number of percentage of abortions. But that is due to the economic oppression and frankly, the poor economic circumstances that we exist in now, but that are 400 years in the making,” said Goler Blount.
As per Denver News, in the leaked draft opinion obtained by Politico, Justice Samuel Alito writes in a footnote, “A highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are Black… For our part, we do not question the motives of those who have supported and those who have opposed laws restricting abortions.”
This is a well known fact and the country is bracing for it!
Still, health care providers across the country, like Central City Integrated Health in Detroit, are bracing for the disproportionate impact on Black women.
Farrow says Black women already have a maternal mortality rate three times that of white women. And in Michigan, a 1931 law criminalizing abortion, one of the strictest in the nation, could make it worse.
“I think obviously what we're anticipating is an increase in those numbers of pregnancy-related deaths due to illegal abortions,” said Farrow. “We may see a return of people receiving services in basements, alleys and places where medical professionals aren’t present.”
This is just going 50 years backwards for our community!