Conservatives have framed their fights against abortion and all women’s reproductive healthcare as the fight for life. But the reality that they don’t want to talk about is that it is a numbers game. Lawmakers in state houses and Congress alike have even said so publicly, that it is a fight to protect the White majority in America.
The original Colonists were of course White Europeans. And for most of our history that racial demographic didn’t change much. Even after the freeing of the slaves – yes, despite attempts by Republicans to rewrite history there was Slavery in the US – White people maintained a super-majority of the population. But that super-majority no longer exists, at present White people make up 60.1% of the population. While still a majority, it has fallen significantly since our founding. A study from the Pew Research Center estimates that single-race White people will fall below 50% of the U.S. population within the next 20 years. And this is what has conservatives terrified.
The latest numbers from the CDC show an estimated 629,000 legal abortions in 2019. This equates to less than 1% of women ages 15-49. It amounts to less than 2/10ths of one percent of the total population. But for Conservatives it is a number worth fighting for because every American birth, in their view, equals one less immigrant.
Anti-abortion fights have long been about race. The 1864 Arizona Territory anti-abortion law was in large part a concern about Christians in Arizona being replaced by Catholics. The 1933 abortion law in Nazi Germany was established as part of their ‘Pure-Race’ doctrine which denied abortions to hereditarily healthy women but allowed it for women deemed to be of inferior race – which has actually been proposed in the US in the 21st century. And in 2022 Hungarian autocratic leader Victor Orban, who denounced a mixed-race society, issued a decree banning almost all abortions. In 2020 Hungary started the Family Protection Action Plan to “Keep Hungary Hungarian.” The government has taken over fertility clinics and are offering massive cash payouts and tax incentives for the ‘right’ kind of babies.
Here at home lawmakers are saying the quiet part out loud. In 2019 a Missouri state lawmaker, and then candidate for Lt. Governor, voted in favor of new abortion restrictions stating that he did it to prevent white people from becoming extinct. At a 2022 Trump rally Congresswoman Mary Miller said “I want to thank you (Trump) for the historic victory for white life…” Her remark was greeted by thunderous applause from those in attendance. Of course she later claimed she ‘mis-read’ her notes. She did not, this was a quintessential Freudian slip. Nebraska Senator Steve Erdman lamented that his state would have 200,000 more workers except for abortion, further suggesting that if abortion were off the table that we would not need immigrants.
Fights against IVF are also math. In 2021 there were 86,000 babies born through IVF. White women accounted for 37% of recipients of IVF treatment. You would think that Conservatives would be happy, more American babies (white) being born. But hundreds of thousands of embryos end up unused, either remaining in frozen storage, or discarded as no longer needed following a successful pregnancy. IVF is not an exact science and not every implanted embryo gestates. It can take multiple attempts to get a successful pregnancy. To get their numbers up, Republicans want each of those embryos to be implanted in a woman and brought to term.
The big numbers are in contraception, and that is next. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a 2015–2017 study, 64.9% of the 72.2 million women aged 15–49 in the United States were currently using contraception. And a World Health Organization study showed that 85% of women became pregnant in the first year after they stop taking contraception. That is over 39 million potential American babies in one year if Republicans are successful in ending legalized contraception.
I do not want to discount those anti-abortionists who truly believe that they are protecting unborn children. Or the bible-thumpers who are doing it on alleged religious grounds. Despite the fact that the bible they are thumping says that life begins at birth, not conception. But by and large the fight over women’s reproductive health and reproductive rights isn’t about Life, it’s about Math. Math, and the subjugation of women. An attempt by men to make women their property, like the slaves that Republicans don’t want to talk about in school.
In the end the only math that will solve the equation is how many of us Vote.