Arizona Bans Abortions Based on Race

Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights, Health Care Debate

At first glance, it sounds like a terrible thing that should certainly be outlawed: being able to choose an abortion based on the race of the parent or the fetus.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (pictured) just signed a bill that makes it a felony to "knowingly perform or provide financing for an abortion sought because of the race or sex of the fetus or a parent's race."

There's only one problem.

There doesn't seem to be any evidence that anyone is getting abortions based on the race or sex of the fetus or the race of the parent.

So what's really going on here?



"The only people who are supporting these bills are people who want to ban abortion. When you think about the heart of the bill, the bill is not about protecting women's health. Instead, you have anti-abortion people passing a condition on abortion," says Elizabeth Nash, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy associate for the Guttmacher Institute that advocates for sexual and reproductive health.

"It is unusual. There's not anything out there to say this does happen, so it's weird that people would try to adopt a law for something that's not happening," she adds.

Not in Arizona.

In other words, Arizona politicians are once again using race and ethnicity to cause havoc. There's nothing weird about it; it's just good ole fashioned American race-baiting.

We've just seen this with the state's illegal immigration law, with many -- including the U.S. Justice Department -- agreeing it would set off a wave of racial profiling and tie up the valuable time of already overburdened and underfunded law enforcement agencies.

We've also seen an attempt to combine race and abortion with controversial ads targeting black women.

The abortion law would cause women to have to disclose a reason for their abortions by verifying that it is not for racial reasons or because of the sex of the fetus. This law also sets a precedent by penalizing doctors for supposedly aborting babies for these aforesaid reasons.

"This law creates a highly unusual requirement that women state publicly their reason for choosing to terminate a pregnancy -- a private decision they already made with their physician, partner and family," said Bryan Howard, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, in a statement. "While we condemn racism and sexism in all forms, legislation that overrides the doctor-patient relationship is not in the best interest of Arizonans."

It seems like a slow march to gradually set a precedent for limiting abortions or eliminating the right for a woman to get an abortion -- something that our Supreme Court has confirmed as legal.

"The bill is not about protecting women's health. You have anti-abortion people passing a condition on abortion," Nash says.

"This seems to be trying to get people to think about race more than affect any sort of practice. This is an issue that doesn't make sense from a political standpoint except that it could pull apart different coalitions," she continues.

I was surprised at how many African Americans were in support of the Arizona immigration law when it came out. It's crazy for us not to see that discrimination is discrimination period. The Rev. Al Sharpton practically had to chastise his followers for not seeing that discrimination is wrong no matter who happens to be the victim.

It's called "divide and conquer."

So many people in this country are not aligned on issues that could actually benefit them. Take the estate tax, for example. So few people are actually affected by it, so why did so many people who would never make enough money to qualify for it object to it?

And take members of the Tea Party.

To spread the idea that taking advantage of well-earned public benefits, such as Social Security or Medicare, is accepting government handouts is an outrageous lie. Many of those same Tea Partiers also chose not to decline their Social Security benefits or mail back their unemployment checks.

Instead of playing games with abortion and using race to play people against one another, states like Arizona need to be looking at ways to help people make good decisions.

"The kind of legislation we need is expanded access to family planning care so women can have kids when they are ready," says Nash. "We need to continue certain conversations. I don't think this issue needs a legislative solution."

 

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