Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, everyone’s been sharing their hot takes about abortion and whether women should have the right to do what they want with their bodies. In an interview with Catholic Current, Rep. Senate nominee J.D. Vance shared his take: that he thinks there’s something “comparable” between abortion and slavery.
“- while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society - I really think abortion has really done something very socially destructive to us as people in how we see the most vulnerable and the most dependent among us. I think that’s one of the under-appreciated facts about abortion. It’s really distorted our entire society,” said Vance in the interview.
Listen to the full clip here.
This interview was back in October of 2021 but resurfaced just in time as Vance had won the Republican Senate primary in May, reports say. Members of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus criticized his comments.
More from Ohio Capital Journal:
State Rep. Terrence Upchurch, D-Cleveland, called Vance’s comments “dangerous” and “out of bounds.”
“J.D. Vance’s disgusting views on abortion are an outrage and Ohioans are taking note,” he said.
Upchurch argued Vance owes Ohioans an apology. But Rep. Catherine Ingram, D-Cincinnati, doesn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t want his apology as a Black female here in the state of Ohio,” she said. “Looking at Black maternal health issues that we have, and how desperate the health care is, how desperate our housing is, and then you have the audacity to take away a decision that women can make for themselves?”
“How dare you insult Black women?” she added.
Unsurprisingly, Vance’s campaign rallies against funding universities that teach that “America is an evil, racist nation.” Well if he knew the “evil, racist” side of American history he could acknowledge the legacy of slavery and its ripples into Black maternal health. Structural racism has made childbirth essentially unsafe for Black pregnancies, linking to life-threatening medical conditions and institutionalized bias in healthcare.
Rep. Juanita Brent pointed out that those pro-birth lawmakers often disregard the lives of their Black people citizens in general.
“Madison (in) House District 13 had the nerve to say that abortion is the number one killer for Black babies — so problematic when we’ve got cardiac arrest, homicide, cancer, other diseases that are killing Black people disproportionately,” said Brent via Ohio Capital Journal.
People should really stop trying to play struggle olympics with slavery. It favors the argument pro-birthers pose when they ask if Black women who get abortions really believe Black lives matter. If pro-birth lawmakers were actually pro-life, they’d look into improving the socio-economic conditions that cause Black women to choose not to carry their pregnancy to term.