Getty Israel, founder of Sisters in Birth, a Jackson, Miss., clinic that serves pregnant women, is shown in this Dec. 17, 2021 photograph. Israel believes if lawmakers want to prevent abortions, they should eliminate risk factors that lead women to end pregnancies — low-wage jobs and lack of access to healthcare, higher education and transportation.
The Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic, a state-licensed abortion clinic in Jackson, Miss., shown in this May 19, 2021 file photograph, is also more commonly known as “The Pink House,” and is shrouded with a black tarp so that its clients may enter in privacy, in Jackson, Miss. If you are Black or Hispanic in a state that already limits access to abortions, you are far more likely than a white woman to have one. And according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press, if the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to further restrict or even ban abortions, minority women will bear the brunt of it.
Mississippi Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch, shown speaking before an audience in Philadelphia, Miss., in this July 29, 2021 file photograph, supports abortion restrictions, including the state law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks — the one the state used before the United States Supreme Court, to challenge Roe v. Wade. If you are Black or Hispanic in a state that already limits access to abortions, you are far more likely than a white woman to have one. And according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press, if the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to further restrict or even ban abortions, minority women will bear the brunt of it.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization director Shannon Brewer, shown in this May 19, 2021 photograph taken at the Jackson, Miss., clinic, said during a recent interview, that she believes politicians advocating to end abortion are also trying to eliminate resources for single mothers. As a Black woman and a mother of six, she said she understands the experiences of women seeking abortion.
State Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, is photographed at the speaker’s well in the House Chamber at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., March 30, 2021. During a recent interview, Summers, a mother herself, said it would be a “travesty for women,” especially for low-income women of color, if access to legal abortion were to disappear.
Tanya Britton, a former president of Pro-Life Mississippi, calls out through a barrier around Mississippi’s only abortion clinic on Nov. 30, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. Britton often travels from her home in Tupelo, Miss., to pray outside the clinic and to try to persuade women not to go inside to end their pregnancies. Britton says it’s a tragedy that the number of Black babies aborted since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision would equal the population of several large cities. She also says people are too casual about terminating pregnancies.
Tanya Britton, a former president of Pro-Life Mississippi, peers through a barrier around Mississippi’s only abortion clinic on Nov. 30, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. Britton often travels from her home in Tupelo, Miss., to pray outside the clinic and to try to persuade women not to go inside to end their pregnancies. Britton says it’s a tragedy that the number of Black babies aborted since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision would equal the population of several large cities. She also says people are too casual about terminating pregnancies.
Tanya Britton, a former president of Pro-Life Mississippi, calls out through a barrier around Mississippi’s only abortion clinic on Nov. 30, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. Britton often travels from her home in Tupelo, Miss., to pray outside the clinic and to try to persuade women not to go inside to end their pregnancies. Britton says it’s a tragedy that the number of Black babies aborted since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision would equal the population of several large cities. She also says people are too casual about terminating pregnancies.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — If you are Black or Hispanic in a conservative state that already limits access to abortions, you are far more likely than a white woman to have one.
And if the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to further restrict or even ban abortions, minority women will bear the brunt of it, according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press.
The numbers are unambiguous. In Mississippi, people of color comprise 44% of the population but 80% of women receiving abortions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks health statistics.
In Texas, they’re 59% of the population and 74% of those receiving abortions. The numbers in Alabama are 35% and 70%. In Louisiana, minorities represent 42% of the population, according to the state Health Department, and about 72% of those receiving abortions.
“Abortion restrictions are racist,” said Cathy Torres, a 25-year-old organizing manager with Frontera Fund, a Texas organization that helps women pay for abortions. “They directly impact people of color, Black, brown, Indigenous people … people who are trying to make ends meet.”
