Really good takedown of the ‘abortion is black genocide’ meme.

blogs.ajc.com

Oddly, the most vociferous critics of Planned Parenthood are also the least likely to support plans and proposals that might actually lower the abortion rate — among black women as well as among white and brown women. Take contraceptive use, which (you might be surprised to know) Planned Parenthood vigorously supports. Contraception accounts for about 35 percent of its services; abortion only about three percent.

If birth control pills and devices were cheaper and more widely available, more women would use them. Unplanned pregnancies would drop. The abortion rate would decline. But conservatives like Hunter have no use for family planning, period.

And what if more poor black women chose not to terminate their pregnancies? What if more desperate women without health insurance or decent housing or reliable employment decided to rely on the tender mercies of the social safety net for their newborns? Would they find conservatives in Congress rushing to shore up funding for housing assistance, food subsidies and health care for the indigent?

Well, this is where things get really strange: the more vociferous a critic of reproductive rights, the less likely the politician is to support Head Start or Medicaid or WIC, which provides milk and other nutritional assistance to poor pregnant women. They love those fetuses in utero. After that, not so much.

It’s a strange love, to say the least.