Colorado Public Radio host Warner failed to challenge Beauprez's claim that "70 percent" of African-American "pregnancies end in abortion"
Summary: On KCFR's Colorado Matters, host Ryan Warner let stand Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez's citation of the false statistic that "as high as 70 percent, maybe even more," of pregnancies among African-American women end in abortion.
On the August 28 broadcast of Colorado Public Radio affiliate KCFR's Colorado Matters, host Ryan Warner let stand during the interview Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez's citation of the false statistic that "as high as 70 percent, maybe even more," of pregnancies among African-American women end in abortion.
Beauprez stated that "in some of our ethnic communities we're seeing very, very high percentages of babies, children, pregnancies end in abortion." When Warner asked him to name "which ethnic communities in particular" he was referring to, Beauprez answered, "I've seen numbers as high as 70 percent, maybe even more, in the African-American community that I think is just appalling."
In fact, according to the latest figures from the November 2005 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among states in which abortion rates by race were adequately reported, the 2002 "abortion ratio for black women" was "495 per 1,000 live births." In other words, roughly 33 percent of pregnancies among African-American women that do not end in miscarriages or stillbirths -- less than half of what Beauprez claimed -- end in "legal induced abortions."
From the August 28 broadcast of KCFR's Colorado Matters:
BEAUPREZ: Tragically, I think, in some of our ethnic communities we're seeing very, very high percentages of babies, children, pregnancies end in abortion. And I think that it's time we have an out-in-the-open discussion about what that means.
WARNER: Do you know which ethnic communities in particular?
BEAUPREZ: I've seen numbers as high as 70 percent, maybe even more, in the African-American community that I think is just appalling. And I'm not saying it's appalling on them; I'm saying it's appalling that something's happening to encourage that. Frankly, it raises another question: Do we think it's OK that that many African-American babies aren't allowed to be born and live an otherwise normal life and reach the blessings, the fullness of the American dream? I think those are very, very serious, very intense, very personal questions that a society such as ours ought to ponder.
—C.H.
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Comments (12) Show
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Media Matters is harping on Beauprez but his point that abortion disproportionately targets African Americans is right on.
African American women make up 13.7 percent of the U.S. population of women of childbearing age, yet the abortion rate among Black women is three times higher than of white women.
Janine Simpson, director of Urban Center Development for Care Net, a network of 750 pregnancy resource centers, says that's because abortion businesses target black women and "an estimated 70 percent of abortion providers are in minority neighborhoods."
Find out more by going here.
...with the language here. Saying that abortion providers "target" minorities is semantical tomfoolery, as if we just stopped those dang providers, there would be no unwanted pregnancies!
It's like blaming umbrellas for the rain.
People I've known who work for providers such as Planned Parenthood are hardly the coat hanger twirling schemers your language would connote. Their interest lay in helping people and to imply otherwise is just insulting.
The reasons that minorities have a disproportionate number of undesired pregnancies are many (and mind you I'm not discounting the personal responsibility component), but it certainly ISN'T because they got a coupon in the mail from their local clinic.
I regard abortion as a necessary evil. But what the far right doesn't grasp is that the solution to reducing the abortion numbers does not lie in eliminating the procedure (which is an utterly stupid idea anyway, given that people have been devising ways to terminate pregnancies since the stone age) but rather to eliminate the need.
but 495 per 1000 live births is 49.5%, not 33%.
Maybe I'm missing something.
What you are missing is that it is 495 abortions per *live* births, not 495 abortions per all pregnancies. 495/1000+495= 33.1%.
If the idiot had said '33% of all pregnancies in the African American community end in abortions, and that is too high', he at least would have been mathmatically accurate. I'm pro-choice, but I think 1/3 is kinda high. I'm sure that some of his buddies, though, think it is not high enough.
Thanks.
Math was never my strong suit. :)
I agree that no matter which number is used, the percentage seems high.
I agree, however, that when a politician gives statistics, his or her sources need to be mentioned, always, no exception. Reporters, interviewers should learn that rule.
But, since I was unable to listen to the entire interview, I wonder how he wants to ponder the situation. If we have to limit it to a discussion of abortion using terms like "killing babies," I want out. The entire issue needs to be addressed. Is birth control available, all kinds, and not just the one sanctioned by the Catholic Church? What is the environment of these ethnic groups that makes young women feel unable or unwilling to put children into it? You can't limit the discussion just to abortion right or wrong in the real world. In a perfect world, maybe. But this is not a perfect world.
Someone would have to fill me in on the context of the remark.
[link to www.cdc.gov]
This looks pretty official, it has all the breakdowns from the CDC statistics.
Table 17 has the racial breakdowns if your interested in.
It looks to me that the total number of abortions in 2000 was 533,398 and there was 193,001, thats only 36%. The whites had 303,744 which make up 57% of the population.
I would still like to know what implications Beuprez was hoping we would get with his comment. Either tell me what else was said, or make him explain it.
We all now agree his statistics were wrong. I do not want to get too angry with Ryan Warner and Public Radio for the mistake of not calling him on this. I have appreciated the chance the station has given me to listen to both Beuprez (though it upsets my stomach a little) and to Ritter. It really, really affirms my reasons for disliking B. as a candidate. I don't want to feel that I am just jerking my knees.
But the whole abortion issue bugs me because of the illogic of it at this time. Yet it seems to work for the neocons as a means to keep their power.
Stimpy's points are so well taken and were what I should have pointed out with my earlier comment.
Drive through neocon Kansas and see the anti-abortion signs on the side of the road every five miles, interspersed with the ads for the next pornography store for the truckers I might add. Find the one that really gets me--something to the effect that abortion is wrong because Kansas "needs people."
Maybe Beuprez should suggest to his neocon friends in Kansas that they all "target" those woman and open their arms and homes to the African-American women who are pregnant and thinking of having an abortion. Think of that as a way to lower the statistics if he is so concerned about them. Somehow, I don't see that happening.
Or maybe he should think more deeply and wonder what his friends in power are doing to make life more difficult for the "ethnic" subgroups he refers to. Outlawing aborton is not going to help them. (And I do also understand the need for personal resposibility. I just hope I see the complexity of the issue also.)
From reading the transcript, it seems like Warner laid a trap that Beauprez walked right into. Beauprez pulled out such an arbitrary number, I bet Warner was not prepared to challenge Beauprez.
Anyway, seeing the firestorm created by Media Matters, maybe Warner should get a little credit for getting Beauprez on the record.
To be courteous and kind and let your guests feel comfortable to speak any damned lie they want.
What does a journalist or an analyst do? Challenge authority under any and all circumstances and make politicians back up the statements with facts.
Bob Beauprez is a jackass. He should be loaded into a giant rubber band and shot into the heart of the sun so he never again is allowed to make comments this freaking ignorant. Jeesh.
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