Roe v. Wade’s fall will hit Black women hardest as options vanish: experts

Health experts link high abortion rates among Black women to disparities in access to healthcare, including lack of health insurance and contraceptives in underserved communities.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion is expected to have a disproportionate impact on Black women and other women of colour, who have traditionally faced overwhelming costs and logistical obstacles in obtaining reproductive healthcare, experts said.

The reversal of Roe v. Wade leaves the decision of whether or not an abortion is legal in the hands of state governments. While some states have recently reaffirmed the right to an abortion, 26 states are likely or certain to ban abortion in most or all circumstances.

More Black women live in states that will 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 per cent of Mississippi’s population, according to recent Census data, compared to about 13 per cent of the U.S. population overall.

Black women in the United States are five 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).

Health experts trace the relatively high rates of abortion among Black women to disparities in access to healthcare, including lack of health insurance and contraceptives in underserved communities.

In Mississippi, Black women accounted for 74 percent of abortions in 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“There is no denying the fact that this is a direct attack on all women, and Black women stand to be disproportionately impacted by the court’s egregious assault on basic human rights,” said Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

If more Black women are forced to carry pregnancies to term, there will be a disproportionate increase in deaths of Black women in childbirth, a study from Duke University finds.