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PBS Frontline investigates Black abortion

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A new documentary by PBS’ Frontline delves into the idea that Black women are pushed toward getting abortions at higher rates than white women, perpetuating the country’s history of medical racism and “Black genocide.”

According to a report by the Huffington Post, filmmaker Yoruba Richen was inspired to explore the topic while shooting footage of an anti-abortion protest in Indiana, where she saw signs saying “Abortion is killing black people” and “Margaret Sanger was racist.”

Richen, a Black woman herself and an award-winning documentarian, spoke with people on both sides of the issue, including pro-choice Planned Parenthood physicians and anti-abortion clergy.

Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., who was prominently featured in the documentary, told BlackNews.com that he had some misgivings about participating in the project with “secular, liberal-leaning media,” but he was pleased with how it turned out.

“Much of the reporting of the issue of abortion in the Black community has always produced censorship and extreme bias, but I must say this report was pretty objective,” he said. “PBS is far from a conservative source and normally has a left-leaning political slant, but this was well toward the middle, and I appreciate that.”

The film also explores where the two sides find common ground.

“What I think both pro-lifers and reproductive-righters can agree on is that Black women have a larger number of abortions than you would expect when thinking about their share of the population,” reproductive rights historian Cynthia Greenlee notes in Richen’s documentary. “Where we differ is the interpretation.”

That number, according to the report by Huffington Post: “Black women in the U.S. account for 28 percent of reported abortions each year, while making up only 13 percent of the female population.”

“Black women are having higher numbers of abortions than their population. Just as similarly, and not to compare it, but there are higher numbers of African-Americans in lots of things that you can point to, such as incarceration rates,” Richen told the Huffington Post. “The real question that reproductive rights people want to look at is why that’s the case. What is it that is causing those numbers? And it’s everything from lack of sex education, health care access and many, many other causes people have looked into and written about. You can definitely use that statistic in many ways. But as Dr. Raegan (a Planned Parenthood physician interviewed in the documentary) says in the piece, ‘Let’s not focus on statistics. That’s not the focus. Let’s focus on women getting access to care.’”

 

To watch “Anti-Abortion Crusaders: Inside The African-American Abortion Battle,” visit pbs.org/frontline.

Black women in the U.S. account for 28 percent of reported abortions each year, while making up only 13 percent of the female population.

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