Abortion industry takes aim at Ohio’s black communities

voice” that has “(taken) over ownership and control of other people’s bodies.” She claimed that abortion bans place black women in “real life-and-death situations,” and the system in place “(is) still designed to benefit white men who own stuff.”

I am a woman. I am black. And I couldn’t be more offended by the “stuff” within Howse’s narrative.

Howse was eager to remind her readers of the atrocities in a time when one drop of Negro blood rendered us of a person. But in actuality, today there is no greater threat to the personhood of people of color than legalized abortion.

Let’s take a look at the facts.

According to the current U.S. Census, African Americans make up 12.3% of Ohio’s population. Yet, according to the Ohio Department of Health, more than 40% of Ohio’s abortions were performed on black babies in 2017. We are literally killing ourselves from the inside out.

It gets worse. From 2007 to 2017, Ohio reports show that 104,660 black lives were lost to abortion, accounting for 38.1% of the total number of abortions during that time. I cannot think of another political cause that has done more to choke off the dreams, votes, and futures of black Ohioans than the pro-abortion movement.

It’s disturbing to think that if Rep. Howse or I had been one of the infants she so readily fights against, we would not be here to exercise the fundamental rights of free speech and free expression.

Both of my parents were raised by single mothers living below the poverty line. And yet, here I stand as a first-generation college graduate with a law degree. How can we expect society to change its perceptions, systems and behavior to be more respectful and affirming of black lives if we insist on aborting our own children at these alarming rates?

In fact, the system currently in place doesn’t just allow for abortion but actively promotes the taking of black lives.

The five Ohio counties with the highest black population are also the five with the highest abortion rates. Ohio’s nine abortion clinics are located almost exclusively within areas of high poverty rates and high black populations. With deadly precision, the abortion industry has infiltrated Ohio’s black communities. And it’s big business.

Out-of-pocket costs for a first-trimester abortion at Preterm Cleveland, one of Ohio’s abortion clinics, are $465 in-clinic and $535 for a medication abortion. In the second trimester, surgical abortion prices range from $575 at 13 weeks, to $915 at 17 weeks and up to $1,495 at 21 weeks.

The truth is, while abortion is sold as an empowering and essential service to women, in reality it is a tool used to enable the insidious forces that render women — especially black women — powerless.

Whether we want to admit it, this sends a deplorable message. Ohio’s abortion industry says that our state would be better off with fewer black bodies, both inside and outside of the womb.

Howse and I can agree that being “protectors of black women, black babies and black families” is a worthy cause. But the “right to choice” is a privilege of the living, and it should not be used to deny the dignity of unborn life. The right to choice begins within one’s own life and voice, and it ends at the threatening of someone else’s.

I would hope that Howse and I could fight together against systematic oppression. But Howse’s fight is confined to outside the womb. Mine is expansive: from womb to tomb. My fight is for human rights, because without life, we have neither civil rights nor a voice to choose.

And as long as our elected representatives fight for the right to abort black lives, my message is simple:

Respect their existence, or expect my resistance.