Ohio Democrat Drafts Amendment Seeking To Make Black Babies Exempt From Pro-Life Law

A female Democrat state representative from Ohio, Rep. Janine Boyd, drafted an amendment last week seeking to have black babies exempted from pro-life legislation dubbed the "heartbeat bill," which bars babies with detectable heartbeats (around six weeks gestation) from being killed via abortion.

As reported by LifeNews, Boyd's bill "would have given an exemption to African American women to abort their unborn babies for any reason up to the state’s current abortion limit, 20 weeks.”

Ironically, Boyd "likened restrictions on abortion to slavery as she urged her fellow lawmakers to support the measure," the outlet noted.

“Black slaves were once treated like cattle and put out to stud in order to create generations of more slaves,” argued the Democrat. “Our country is not far enough beyond our history to legislate as if it is.”

Thankfully, Amendment 0291 failed, and the heartbeat bill was signed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine on Friday.

Former Planned Parenthood executive turned pro-life advocate Abby Johnson ripped Boyd's targeted amendment, snarking that "apparently a 38% national abortion rate in the African-American community isn’t enough."

 

"A female, African-American democratic state representative from Ohio presented this amendment to the Ohio Heartbeat bill. This amendment would have made an exception for African-American babies...because apparently a 38% national abortion rate in the African-American community isn’t enough," posted Johnson to Facebook. "The amendment was struck down 11-7."

“To reference owning humans as a defense of dismembering them is moral myopia. If it is wrong to own humans, it is also wrong to intentionally kill them,” said pro-life group Created Equal president Mark Harrington, according to LifeNews.

 

“Referencing abortion to avoid consigning children to slavery, she seems to suggest black children today should likewise not be born—which is exactly the purpose of her amendment,” Harrington continued. “Every human being is valuable regardless of the color of his or her skin. To suggest that only black babies should be killed in Ohio is shocking racism not befitting of a representative of the Ohio House.”

Black babies are disproportionately victimized by abortion in the United States. As noted by Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley, “black women terminate pregnancies at far higher rates than other women,” nationally. “In 2014, 36% of all abortions were performed on black women, who are just 13% of the female population,” said Riley.

“The little discussed flip side of ‘reproductive freedom’ is that abortion deaths far exceed those via cancer, violent crime, heart disease, AIDS and accidents," he explained. "Racism, poverty and lack of access to health care are the typical explanations for these disparities. But black women have much higher abortion rates even after you control for income. Moreover, other low-income ethnic minorities who experience discrimination, such as Hispanics, abort at rates much closer to white women than black women."

Additionally, looking at the reality that most Planned Parenthood clinics are locatedin urban areas, and Boyd’s amendment as examples, one could surmise that black babies in the womb are being targeted.