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Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Why Do Pro-Lifers Lie?

Two headlines have blasted out from CNSNews.com recently, and they are both lies.
In Georgia, 53.6% of the Babies Aborted Are Black:"Although whites outnumber blacks 2-to-1 in Georgia, black babies are aborted at a rate nearly 2.5 times greater than white babies and comprise 53.6% of the total number of abortions in the Peach State."
In Mississippi, 72% of Aborted Babies Are Black: "Although whites outnumber blacks in Mississippi by nearly 2-to-1, 71.67% of the babies aborted in Mississippi are black, while 26.6% are white."
I'm not sure who Michael W. Chapman is, but he sure doesn't know much about statistics, and he apparently knows even less about demographics. In a discussion of pregnancy outcomes, it is not useful to consider only whether whites outnumber blacks. We must consider the number of pregnancies carried by white women versus the number of pregnancies carried by black women. If whites are not getting pregnant to begin with (perhaps they're all men, perhaps they're all too young or too old to get pregnant), then they obviously won't be having either abortions or children.

According to the State of Georgia, 56.6% of all pregnancies are to African-American women. Since they are only having 54% of all abortions, you could make the argument that the black population is actually having fewer abortions, per capita, than other populations in the state.

Mississippi is only slightly worse. According to Table A3, of the 39,825 births in Georgia in 2011 (the most recent year for which I could find statistics), 18,069 (45%) were to black women. So, even though whites outnumber blacks 2-1, black women are having nearly the same number of children white women are.

But, if black women are having so many abortions in Mississippi, how can this be? Simple. The news story only reported percentages, not numbers. Women in Mississippi don't have many abortions. Look at Table F1 in Mississippi's 2011 report. Whites had a grand total of 214 abortions, non-whites had 1757. The women of Mississippi murder their babies at a much, much lower rate than, say, New York City. That's not even a day's work in New York, it's a year's worth in Mississippi.

Two "pro-life" articles, both incredibly mis-leading.
This kind of help we don't need. 

6 comments:

Steve Kellmeyer said...

Lying about statistics just makes pro-lifers look stupid, and it doesn't save a single baby's life.

If you like looking stupid AND thereby condemning more children to death, then you go ahead and spread stupid stories like the two CNS stories above. You will accomplish both your goals.

If, on the other hand, you want to be taken seriously by people who are on the fence about abortion, then I suggest you give them accurate numbers and accurate interpretations of those numbers.

What this guy did was just stupid.

Patrick Button said...

I really don't think he is being intentionally misleading. However, I do dislike the whole "abortionists are racist and trying to kill all the blacks" meme. Planned Parenthood was founded by eugenicists, but I really doubt that either its leadership or its rank and file are actually trying to wipe out black people. In addition, the focus on supposed racism distracts from the fact that abortionists are murderers. The problem isn't racism, its mass infanticide.

Mary Ann Kreitzer said...

I'm puzzled. Is it insignificant that blacks, who represent about 12% of the population have almost 40% of the abortions? And is it not significant that Planned Parenthood locates most of its facilities in inner city, often lower class neighborhoods? What does one have to do to make the statistics meaningful?

Steve Kellmeyer said...

You have to look at the CORRECT population stats - you can't just compare populations based on race alone.

You have to compare populations based on WHO is getting pregnant.

First, black women make up 12% of the population, but do they make up 12% of the FERTILE female population?

In other words, if the 12% of the population which are black women are carrying 40% of the pregnancies, then - in order to be proportional - we should not be surprised if they have 40% of the abortions.

Conversely, if the 88% of the population that is white women turn out only to be carrying 60% of the pregnancies, then when they have 60% of the abortions, they are having abortions at a rate proportionate to their pregnancy rate.

I don't doubt that abortionists are racists, but neither of these articles actually DEMONSTRATE what I would like to believe.

Steve Kellmeyer said...

In order to be racist, not only would black women have to make up 12% of the population, but black PREGNANT women would have to be only 12% of the PREGNANT population.

AND, in addition to that, the black PREGNANT women would have to be having abortions at a rate HIGHER than 12%.

But that's exactly what we CANNOT show. In fact, according to the state and CDC stats, at any given time black women are much more likely to be pregnant than white women are.

Steve Kellmeyer said...

Here, if you want to prove racism against blacks, go here:

I've pulled out the useful figures from pregnancy, race, outcome 2009 table about halfway down the page:

(All numbers are in thousands)
Total pregnancies: 6369
White 3207 = 50.3%
Black 1253 = 19.7%
Hispanic 1474 = 23.1%

Total Abortions: 1152
White 383 = 33.2%
Black 445 = 38.6%
Hispanic 252 = 21.9%

Blacks have about 20% of the pregnancies, but nearly 39% of the abortions. Hispanics, on the other hand, have about 23% of the pregnancies, and about 22% of the abortions.

So the racism is primarily directed against black babies. But given the numbers about Mississippi and Georgie, I would bet it's happening mostly in the north and east, not in the south.