A recently-published law review article seriously addresses the abortion-as-a-racist-tactic claim. The author is “pro-choice” and her conclusions are standard pro-choice conclusions. But to her credit she seriously considers and evaluates (tries to refute) the claim that abortion was associated with or had a dimension that supported population control for racists purposes. While arguing that “current claims offered by anti-abortion legislators and activists about race and abortion are flawed,” the author admits: “In the years immediately before and after Roe, some abortion-rights organizations did use population-based arguments for abortion or form alliances with population organizations. Some population controllers, moreover, did have ties to the eugenic legal reform movement or work primarily to reduce population among the poor. Activists involved in the abortion debate, however, tended to focus on population growth among white, middle class individuals, stressing the importance of sexual freedom and environmental preservation. Belonging to the population-control movement did not necessarily mean that an activist was racially biased.” Mary Ziegler, Roe’s Race: The Supreme Court, Population Control, and Reproductive Justice, 25 Yale J. L. & Femin. 1, 50 (2013) (emphasis added).
Lynn D. Wardle, BYU Law School (130913)