Abort73.com > The Case Against Abortion > Abortion and Race

In America today, the average black woman is more than five times as likely to have an abortion as the average white woman.¹ Part of this disparity owes to the fact that, statistically, black women get pregnant more frequently than white women,² but even if we control for pregnancy, black babies are still four times more likely to be aborted than their white counterparts.³ Hispanic babies are one and a half times more likely.⁴ No matter what your opinion of abortion, the fact that it so disproportionately eliminates minority babies should at least give you pause to consider.  

Here’s what it looks like by the numbers. According to the latest census estimates, 13.7% of the U.S. population is black,⁵ and yet somewhere between 29-40% of all U.S. abortions are performed on black babies. The Guttmacher Institute puts that number at 29%, based on voluntary 2022 survey data from 6,698 respondents across 56 U.S. abortion clinics.⁶ The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) places the number at 39.5%, based on the more than 340 thousand abortions that took place in 2022 within the 32 states and districts that report abortion data by race.⁷ By comparison, non-Hispanic whites make up 57.5% of the U.S. population but account for just 30-32% of all abortions.⁸

In 2022, the reported abortion ratio for black women was 429.⁹ That means there were 429 abortions for every 1,000 live births. Statistically, 30% of black pregnancies now end in abortion (excluding miscarriages). Among white women, the abortion ratio is 106—which means less than 10% of white pregnancies end in abortion.¹⁰ The current abortion rate among black women, which is the number of abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age is 24.4.¹¹ So in 2022, 2.4% of black women, aged 15-44, had an abortion. To compare, 1.2% of Hispanic women (aged 15-44) and 0.57% of white women (aged 15-44) had an abortion in that same year.¹²

In 2022, approximately 2,500 human beings lost their lives to abortion each day in the United States.¹³ Based on CDC reports, 21% were Hispanic, 32% were white, and 40% were black.¹⁴ That translates to approximately 525 Hispanic children, 800 white children, and 1,000 black children. Though the white population in the U.S. outnumbers the black population by more than four to one,¹⁵ abortion kills more black children each day than white. In fact, abortion claims almost the same number of black lives each year in the United States as all other causes combined.¹⁶

CBS News reported in 2009 that "Hispanics have surpassed blacks as the nation's largest minority group,”¹⁷ Since then, the Hispanic population has continued to grow at a rate that far exceeds that of the black population—and the white. Immigration has played a significant role in this demographic shift, but that isn’t the primary factor. The Brookings Institution projected in 2018 that over the next 40 years, America’s Hispanic population would grow by 86% while the black population would grow by only 34%. “Immigration contributes to one-third of Hispanic growth,” the article notes, “[but] the rest (is) attributable to natural increase.”¹⁸ A 2024 report by the U.S. Census Bureau backs this up. “Between 2022 and 2023,” it reads, “the Hispanic population accounted for [almost] 71% of the overall growth of the United States population, driven primarily by Hispanic births.”¹⁹ The Hispanic fertility rate, according to the March of Dimes, was 64.4 (births per 1,000 women aged 15-44) between 2021-2023. The black fertility rate over that same period was 55.2.²⁰

The CDC reports that during the 1970's, roughly 24% of all U.S. abortions were performed on black women.²¹ That average rose to 30% in the 1980's, 34% in the 1990's, 36% in the 2000’s, and 38% in the 2010’s.²² This reveals, first, that killing black babies in the womb is a growth industry and, second, that roughly 33% of all U.S. abortions have targeted black children. Based on the estimated 66 million abortions that have occurred in the United States since 1973,²³ we can deduce that roughly 22 million of them were performed on black babies. As of the 2020 census, the non-Hispanic black population in the U.S. stood just shy of 40 million,²⁴ which means that abortion has reduced the size of the black community by more than 35%—and that doesn't include the children and grandchildren that would have been born to those aborted more than a generation ago. Meanwhile, the Hispanic population in 2020 had climbed to 62 million.²⁵ The difference in population size between these two groups is almost identical to the number of black babies who’ve been killed in utero. James Studnicki, in a 2020 article published in the National Library of Medicine, calls abortion’s “racially skewed distribution” a subject of “overwhelming demographic importance” that our thought leaders are unwilling to engage with.²⁶

Recognizing that abortion disproportionately impacts minorities is one thing. Understanding why is quite another. According to a 2017 Pew Research survey, there is not much of an ideological divide between blacks and whites when it comes to abortion. Though a black woman is five times more likely to have an abortion than a white woman, black adults are only four percentage points more likely than whites to support abortion as a matter of public policy.²⁷ And though black women are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than white women, their poverty levels are relatively comparable to Hispanic women.²⁸ In both cases, the disparity in income doesn’t match the disparity in abortions—which tells us that something beyond ideology and economics is at work here.

Ralph Richard Banks, who wrote the book, Is Marriage for White People?, reported in a piece published by the Stanford Department of African and African American Studies that “black women are three times as likely as white women to never marry.”²⁹ Since close to 90% of all U.S. abortions are performed on unmarried women, the more unmarried women there are in any given demographic, the more abortions are likely to occur. A 2019 Pew Research study on the landscape of marriage in the U.S. reveals that “while 57% of white adults ... are married, fewer than half of Hispanic (48%) and black adults (33%) are.”³⁰ These marriage imbalances don't fully explain the differences in abortion frequency, but they do support the premise that higher marriage rates correspond to lower abortion rates.

Some suggest that the reason black women have a much higher rate of abortion is because the abortion industry has strategically targeted them. Life Issues Institute has reported that a majority of Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics are within walking distance of minority communities.³¹ The Guttmacher Institute countered that most of Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics are in neighborhoods with a white majority.³² Since each is saying a slightly different thing, it’s fair to say that the data is inconclusive. That being said, successful businesses place their products within easy reach of their primary customers, and Planned Parenthood runs the most successful abortion business in the country. We can argue as to whether their geographic placement creates the demand for abortion, or whether the demand for abortion determines their geographic placement, but it’s almost certainly a little of both. That’s how businesses operate in the real world. John Piper, a white pastor who speaks often of threats to the black community, has called the rationale for abortion clinic placement less important than the result:

The de facto effect—I don’t call it the main cause, but net effect—of putting abortion clinics in the urban centers is that the abortion of Hispanic and Black babies is more than double their percentage of the population... Call this what you will—when the slaughter has an ethnic face and the percentages are double that of the white community and the killers are almost all white, something is going on here that ought to make the lovers of racial equality and racial harmony wake up.³³

The fact that black leaders like former President Barack Obama support abortion does not change the reality of what is happening. How many candidates for public office have abandoned a prior conviction so as to be consistent with a party platform? This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in Reverend Jesse Jackson's flip-flop on abortion. Prior to having ambitions as a Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, he was an eloquent and outspoken opponent of abortion. Though his public stance on abortion reversed, his earlier remarks remain as applicable as ever, and show that there is more than mere numbers at stake. The following remarks come from his 1977 article for the National Right to Life News:

The question of abortion confronts me in several different ways. First, although I do not profess to be a biologist, I have studied biology and know something about life from the point of view of the natural sciences. Second, I am a minister of the Gospel and, therefore, feel that abortion has a religious and moral dimension that I must consider. Third, I was born out of wedlock (and against the advice that my mother received from her doctor) and therefore abortion is a personal issue for me...

Another area that concerns me greatly, namely because I know how it has been used with regard to race, is the psycholinguistics involved in this whole issue of abortion. If something can be dehumanized through the rhetoric used to describe it, then the major battle has been won. Those advocates of taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human. Rather they talk about aborting the fetus. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified...

What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?³⁴

Functionally-speaking, support for abortion has always depended upon the dehumanization of its primary victim—unborn children—and there is strong evidence that dehumanization is always and intrinsically unjust. Ironically, it was the mainstreaming of birth control that paved the way for abortion-on-demand, but whereas birth control was sold as a means of preventing the unwanted and "unfit" from being conceived, abortion now eliminates them after they’re already here. You might say that abortion is a manifestation of the worst forms of cultural bigotry. It is racist, in disproportionally eliminating minorities. It is sexist, in disproportionally eliminating girls, and it is classist in disproportionally eliminating the poor. Alveda C. King, daughter of slain civil-rights leader A.D. King and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., quotes her uncle often when outlining her opposition to abortion. She writes:

[Martin Luther King, Jr.] once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety...” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.³⁵

The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children. Do you feel the tension in that statement? There is a sense in which the black community is being victimized by abortion violence, and there is a sense in which the black community is perpetuating abortion violence. Abortion, you see, is a form of self-immolation. It is racism, perpetrated against one’s own race. It is sexism, perpetrated against one’s own sex, and it is classism, perpetrated against one’s own class. In theory, every mother who has an abortion does so willingly and without compulsion. In practice, this is almost never the case. As Frederica Mathewes-Green speculates, “[A woman] wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.”³⁶ She says that not to justify abortion, but to point out that it is a violent and desperate attempt at self-preservation, which leaves its survivors permanently damaged. Every abortion is violent and fatal, but its incommensurate impact on minority children and minority communities should deeply trouble us all.

Footnotes

1. The non-Hispanic black community in America makes up 13.7% of the American population but accounted for 39.5% of reported 2022 abortions (according to the CDC). As such, their percentage share of overall abortions is 2.9 times what it should be, based on their population size. Among non-Hispanic whites, which make up 57.5% of the population and accounted for 31.9% of 2022 abortions, their percentage share is 0.5 what it should be, based on their population size. Dividing 2.9 by 0.5 yields 5.2.
2. The CDC reports that pregnancy rates are “highest for non-Hispanic black women (135.1 per 1,000 women aged 15–44)” and lowest for “non-Hispanic white women (84.1).” This according to their publication, “2010 Pregnancy Rates Among U.S. Women,” https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/pregnancy/2010_pregnancy_rates.htm.
3. The CDC reports that the 2022 abortion ratio for non-Hispanic black women was 429. That’s the number of abortions per 1,000 live births. The abortion ratio for non-Hispanic white women was 106. Dividing 429 by 106 yields 4.05.
4. The CDC reports that the 2022 abortion ratio for Hispanic women was 165. The abortion ratio for non-Hispanic white women was 106. Dividing 165 by 106 yields 1.56.
5. United States Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: United States.” https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table (accessed Feb 16, 2026).
6. Rachel K. Jones. “Medicaid’s role in alleviating some of the financial burden of abortion: Findings from the 2021–2022 Abortion Patient Survey.” Guttmacher Institute (Feb 17, 2024), https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psrh.12250
7. Stephanie Ramer, MPH, et al. “Abortion Surveillance—-United States, 2022.” The Centers for Disease Control (Nov 28, 2024), https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/ss/pdfs/ss7307a1-H.pdf
8. The CDC states that 31.9% of 2022 abortions were performed on non-Hispanic white women; the Guttmacher Institute places the number at 30.1%.
9. Stephanie Ramer, MPH, et al. “Abortion Surveillance—-United States, 2022.” The Centers for Disease Control (Nov 28, 2024), https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/ss/pdfs/ss7307a1-H.pdf
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Based on the reported abortion rate of 5.7 for non-Hispanic white women.
13. Based on the estimated 913,000 abortions that occurred in 2022, according to available state-level data: http://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics.
14. Stephanie Ramer, MPH, et al. “Abortion Surveillance—-United States, 2022.” The Centers for Disease Control (Nov 28, 2024), https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/ss/pdfs/ss7307a1-H.pdf
15. United States Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: United States.” https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table (accessed Feb 16, 2026).
16. According to the CDC, 411,934 black Americans died in 2022 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr74/nvsr74-04.pdf). That same year, an estimated 913,000 abortions took place in the United States. Assuming that 40% were performed on black women, there were approximately 365,200 black babies aborted in 2022.
17. Lloyd De Vries. “Hispanics Now Largest U.S. Minority.” CBS (Jan 20, 2003), http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-537369.html
18. William H. Frey. ”The US will become ‘minority white’ in 2045, Census projects.” The Brookings Institution (Mar 14, 2018)  https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/
19. United States Census Bureau. “New Estimates Highlight Differences in Growth Between the U.S. Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Populations” (June 27, 2024) https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024/population-estimates-characteristics.html
20. March of Dimes. “Data: Births.” (Jan 2024)  https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/data?reg=99&top=2&stop=4&lev=1&slev=1&obj=1
21. Based on published data from the CDC for 1972, 1973 and 1976, adjusted to exclude the racial category, “other.” http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00053774.htm
22. Based on published data from the CDC for the years 1980-2019. No data available for 1981-1984, 1994, 1996-1998, 2017.
23. The National Right to Life Committee estimates that 65.4 million U.S. abortions took place between 1973 and 2023 (https://nrlc.org///wp-content/uploads/StateofAbortion2024.pdf). An estimated 913,000 additional abortions occurred in 2023 (https://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/).
24. U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce. “2020 PROFILE OF GENERAL POPULATION AND HOUSING CHARACTERISTICS.” Decennial Census, DEC Demographic Profile, Table DP1, https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALDP2020.DP1?g=010XX00US&d=DEC+Demographic+Profile.
25. Ibid.
26. James Studnicki, “Perceiving and Addressing the Pervasive Racial Disparity in Abortion.” National Library of Medicine (Aug 18, 2020), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7436774/
27. Pew Research Center, “Public Opinion on Abortion.”—62% of black adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to 58% of white adults—(July 7, 2017), http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
28. Jessica L. Semega, Kayla R. Fontenot, and Melissa A. Kollar, “Income and Poverty in the United States: 2016.” United States Census Bureau (September 2017), https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/P60-259.pdf
29. Ralph Richard Banks, “Is Marriage for White People?: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone” Stanford Department of African and African American Studies (2012), https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/06/the-landscape-of-marriage-and-cohabitation-in-the-u-s/#
30. Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “The landscape of marriage and cohabitation in the U.S.” Pew Research Center (Nov 6, 2019), https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/06/the-landscape-of-marriage-and-cohabitation-in-the-u-s/#
31. Susan W. Enouen, “New Research Shows Planned Parenthood Targets Minority Neighborhoods,” Life Issues Institute (Oct 1, 2012), https://www.lifeissues.org/2012/10/new-research-shows-planned-parenthood-targets-minority-neighborhoods/
32. “Claim that Most Abortion Clinics Are Located in Black or Hispanic Neighborhoods Is False,” Guttmacher Institute (June 2014) https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2014/06/claim-most-abortion-clinics-are-located-black-or-hispanic-neighborhoods-false
33. John Piper, “When is Abortion Racism?” Desiring God (January 21, 2007) http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/when-is-abortion-racism
34. Jesse Jackson, “How We Respect Life is the Over-riding Moral Issue…” National Right to Life News (January 1977).
35. Alveda King, “How Can the Dream Survive if We Murder Our Children?” http://www.priestsforlife.org/africanamerican/howcandreamsurvive.htm (accessed Apr 25, 2018).
36. Frederica Mathewes-Green, “Seeking Abortion’s Middle Ground.” The Washington Post (July 28, 1996). https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1996/07/28/seeking-abortions-middle-ground/f04dd815-967d-4dbe-a28f-6e1b73ea6d1f

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