How the Overturning of Roe v. Wade Affects Black Women
More Black women live in states that will likely ban abortion, and those living in southern states - with the most restrictive laws - will bear the brunt.
For example, Black people make up about 38% of Mississippi's population, according to recent Census data, compared to about 13% of the U.S. population overall.
Black women in the United States are nearly four times more likely to have abortions than white women, while Latina women are twice as likely, according to 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Black women’s health and bodily autonomy have been under consistent, unrelenting attack for centuries, a reality that holds true today. The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and deny millions of people the constitutional right to abortion is expected to disproportionately hurt Black women. The United States is also in the throes of a maternal mortality crisis, in which Black women and people who can give birth are more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications or experience near-misses than their white peers.
These crises did not begin, nor have they persisted in a vacuum. Rather, they reflect long-standing racist and misogynistic efforts to control Black women’s reproduction and, by extension, their well-being and livelihoods. They are rooted in a legacy that includes, for example, efforts to coerce low-income Black women to accept birth control in exchange for cash, state laws that allowed for and even encouraged forcible sterilization, and sanctioned medical experimentation on enslaved Black people that gave rise to obstetrics and gynecology as we know it today.
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About Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Mississippi case that challenged abortion in America
In Dobbs, the Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act—a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for medical emergencies and fetal abnormalities. In a divided opinion, the Court upheld the Mississippi law and overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)—concluding that the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion. As a result, the Court’s decision returned the issue of abortion regulation to the elected branches.
For half a century, Roe v. Wade, and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, have protected the liberty and equality of women. Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that the Constitution safeguards a woman’s right to decide for herself whether to bear a child. Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that in the first stages of pregnancy, the government could not make that choice for women. The government could not control a woman’s body or the course of a woman’s life: It could not determine what the woman’s future would be.