The impact of abortion on Iowa’s African-American community
By WHITNEY SMITH McINTOSH
Whitney McIntosh (right), with her son, Gabe
Statistics and facts are quite interesting as they outline a story. For the beginning of Black History Month, I will be taking the opportunity to introduce you to the rarest and most elusive pro-life group out there: black, conservative, pro-lifers. I have recruited other Black Iowa pro-leaders to contribute to this blog during Black History Month.
The story of the African American community in the state of Iowa with the numbers reflected from 2017 and the success of Planned Parenthood’s extermination plan follows.
Iowa data
In the state of Iowa in 2017 the African American population was 110,050, 3.5% of the total population.
There were 21,888 families, although I’m not sure how this study defined families. The average size of the African American family is 3.33 people.
The number of African Americans over the age of 18 not included in a family unit was 37,163.
The African-American birth rate per 1000 African Americans was 20.1 percent which translates to 3028 African Americans born in 2017.
The African American surgical abortion rate is 17.3%, making the total number of African American surgical abortions in 2017 five-hundred twenty-six. (For the record, surgical abortions are tracked while chemical abortions are not.)
As an additional note, the number of African American children born outside of marriage was 696.
The black birth rate is below replacement
With African Americans being 3.5% of the population and the African American medical abortion rate being 17.3%, we are no longer able to replace ourselves for the next generation. If this rate continues, our population will almost be gone within four generations without having people come in from other states.
The dwindling population of African American unborn babies can be partially ‘credited’ to Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood whose eugenicist creed focused on reducing ‘undesirable’ elements of our population. Said Sanger:
“We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…
… these two words [birth control] sum up our whole philosophy … It means the release and cultivation of the better elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extinction, of defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”
However, many pro-choice advocates don’t realize that Ms. Sanger largely opposed abortion:
“In plain, everyday language, in an abortion there is always a very serious risk to the health and often to the life of the patient … Frequent abortions tend to cause barrenness and serious, painful pelvic ailments. These and other conditions arising from such operations are very likely to ruin a woman’s general health.
But why not adopt the easier, safer, less repulsive course and prevent conception altogether? Why put these thousands of women who each year undergo such abortions to the pain they entail and in whatever danger attends them?”
[For the record, Iowans for LIFE only supports Natural Family Planning as the safe, effective, and theologically moral approach to family planning.]
The drive to reduce ‘deplorable’ elements of our society
Although Ms. Sanger didn’t advocate human abortion, she spent her life promoting and marketing birth control to black pastors in an effort to reduce what she considered deplorable elements of America. It was only after her death that Planned Parenthood aggressively began promoting and performing abortions, and that was under the leadership of a man, Alan F. Guttmacher.
Planned Parenthood began targeting black neighborhoods. Research done a few years ago by the Life Issues Institute found that “79 of abortion-performing Planned Parenthood clinics were within walking distance of these black neighborhoods.
Bitter fruit
Tragically, only 82.7% of black babies in Iowa survive the womb, as these numbers demonstrate. Nationally, it’s worse.
This number is horrifying, yet so big that it’s difficult to understand.
Another way to visualize the number is 18 classrooms worth of kids dead at the choice of their mothers.
Do I have to ask: where is the outcry?
Where is the indignation?
In the summer of 2020 we had riots, buildings being burnt down, laws being changed, and movements happening all over the world …during a pandemic. All of this because of the murder of 5 individuals, while 526 innocent Black babies were quietly killed in a back room. Where is 105 times the amount of outcry from the Black Lives matters community?
[Whitney McIntosh is a member of Iowan’s for LIFE’s board of directors.]