The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

The paper cites a report which is located here, concerning the numbers of abortions that occurred.

First, let’s start with this:

Race was categorized by three groups: white, black, and all other races. Other races included Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian, Alaska Native, and women classified as “other” race. Ethnicity was categorized as either Hispanic or non-Hispanic. As in previous reports, race and ethnicity were provided as separate variables, and abortions were not cross-classified by race and ethnicity. Abortion numbers, ratios, and rates are presented by both race and ethnicity.

Despite efforts to collect and provide a cross-classification of race and ethnicity for the 2001 report in compliance with OMB Directive 15, which specifies federal standards for the collection of data on race and ethnicity (5), only 28 states (accounting for 39% of the total number of reported abortions) were able to provide adequate data for use of the recommended race categories. Eleven states could not adequately break down the data by ethnicity. Moreover, three recommended racial categories (Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaskan Native) had to be combined into one category of “other” to accommodate overlapping categories provided by multiple states. For these reasons, no additional information regarding race or ethnicity was obtained as a result of unavailable data. Therefore, further efforts to collect cross-classified race and ethnicity will not be attempted unless additional states start collecting such data.

OK, now further down, let’s show this:

In the 38 reporting areas for which race was provided, classified according to the same categories used in previous years, approximately 53% of women who obtained legal induced abortions were white; 35%, black; and 8%, other; race was not known for 4% (Table 9). The abortion ratio for black women (472 per 1,000 live births) was 2.9 times the ratio for white women (161 per 1,000), and the ratio for women of the nonhomogeneous “other” race category (330 per 1,000) was 2.0 times the ratio for white women. The abortion rate for black women (28 per 1,000 women) was 2.9 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000), and the abortion rate for women of other races (22 per 1,000 women) was 2.2 times the rate for white women.

So, why is an abortion rate (abortions per 1000 live births) accurate to state at 43%?

According to the CDC stats I read, White females are having more abortions than African American females. I am trying to figure out why there are people putting information and statements out that African American females have more abortions than White females.