A Latino advocacy group has accused abortion providers of specifically targeting Latino communities, and has responded with a billboard campaign in LA.
Alfonso Aguilar of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles states, “It’s clear that Latinos are being targeted by organizations that promote abortion like Planned Parenthood. Many of their clinics are in Latino neighborhoods and communities.” Similar allegations have been made in the past in regards to the African-American community.
Jezebel criticizes the move, saying, “Like most anti-abortion rhetoric, this passive construction takes all agency away from the woman — abortions are ‘done on’ Latina women, rather than chosen and undertaken. As for the rest of it, it’s either false or misleading.” Guttmacher agrees, noting that 63% of abortion providers are located in predominantly non-Hispanic White neighborhoods. As for the Latino Partnership’s citation of the CDC’s stat that Latinas are 2.7 times more likely than Whites to receive an abortion, Guttmacher says, “The overall unintended pregnancy rate for Latinas is higher.”
Which, I mean, d’uh, but thanks for the study.
This is the billboard. Note that they dial up the guilt in Spanish by emphasizing the word “madre,” the translation of which is entirely absent from the English version of the text.
Assuming the figures are true, it’s a shame that the Latino Partnership is pandering to the same irrational fears of persecution that are too often used in politics these days – after all, what’s being suggested by these anti-abortion groups is that Planned Parenthood is, with the government’s backing, systematically exterminating minority children. When it comes to race politics, however, the real shame is that there are so many real threats to look out for (here’s looking at you, Arizona) that it’s awful for this organization to trivialize them where they exist by creating them where they don’t.
UPDATE 6/10/11: While abortions are performed on Latinas almost three times as often as on White women, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, more than three times as many babies were born to unwed Hispanic women than to unwed Whites. As is typical, the Latino Partnership treats abortion as an illness rather than a symptom; they are literally silent on family values and education, and their discussion of health care – once again typically – focuses on our technological prowess as a sign of our superiority, but dismisses the difficulty of paying for health care as basically unimportant. The Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles is ignoring the real needs of its community by fixating on abortion, and so perpetuating an environment where the abortion rate among Hispanics is likely to rise, not fall.