During this election season, MSNBC’s Ali Velshi reiterates the message: Abortion is healthcare. Banning abortion threatens the health, well-being, fertility and lives of women. Velshi says Donald Trump‘s Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has harmed women in states where abortion is now banned.
But for Black women in the U.S., the threat posed by abortion bans is far greater. Black people have rightly distrusted the healthcare industry for decades, and still today, racism in healthcare is a grave threat to Black women. Statistics show mortality rates are higher, and the incidence of high-risk pregnancy is greater for Black women than their white counterparts.
Anti-abortion activists have used this as leverage to, instead of addressing the structural racism and social inequalities affecting Black women and their families, label abortion as “Black genocide,” an old conservative piece of propaganda that frames Black women as “vessels for racial survival.”
The myth of abortion as “Black genocide” is a perverted way for the healthcare industry to avoid accountability for the increased rate of death and complications Black women suffer when giving birth. Abortion is healthcare, and disinformation such as this is causing further harm to an already vulnerable population.
LISTEN: VELSHI ON BLACK WOMEN AND ABORTION RIGHTS
WATCH: VELSHI BREAKS DOWN THE MYTH OF ABORTION AS “BLACK GENOCIDE”
MORE FROM MSNBC’S ALI VELSHI