What does Black Pittsburgh think about the Roe v. Wade reversal?

LA’TASHA D. MAYES, Democratic nominee for state House District 24 in the November election, denounces the June 24 Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe v. Wade. 

Mayes: Decision hit me ‘like a ton of bricks’

Black women accounted for 44 percent of the abortions performed in Pennsylvania in 2020.

The exact number, according to Pennsylvania’s Annual Abortion Report released by the Pa. Department of Health, was 14,177 Black women.

Enough to fill the University of Pittsburgh’s Petersen Events Center to capacity, and then some.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on June 24, reversing the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision from 1973, which made it a constitutional right for a woman to have an abortion, has some Black women in the Pittsburgh area and beyond perturbed. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2019 revealed that nationwide, Black women are almost four times as likely to have abortions as White women.

But in many religious circles, which includes some Black church denominations, abortion is not viewed in a favorable light, and the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal was applauded.

With the Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal, the legality of abortion will be left to the states. Almost immediately, Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, South Dakota and Wisconsin banned abortion within its borders. Judges on Monday, June 27, temporarily blocked “trigger effect” abortion ban laws in Louisiana and Utah, and allowed abortions to resume. But other states are expected to ban abortion in the coming days and weeks, including West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Dakota, Idaho and Wyoming.

But what about Pennsylvania?

Outgoing Pa. Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, already denounced the banning of abortion and, in a statement from May when news of the pending Supreme Court reversal leaked to the media, vowed that “abortion access in Pennsylvania will remain legal and safe as long as I am governor.

“Any decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is an assault on the right to access safe, legal abortion services,” Gov. Wolf added. “Let’s be clear: the issue is not whether we believe in choice, but rather who is going to make that choice. I believe that should be the person who is most closely involved in making this difficult decision – not lawmakers and judges. And I believe that’s a right that applies to every person across this country.”

Political experts are calling Pennsylvania a “battleground state” for abortion rights. Next-door-neighbor Ohio is seen as a state that swings more toward an abortion ban, while states east of Pa. are considered pro-choice, or in favor of abortion access. Come November in the general election, abortion is likely “on the ballot,” as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro is in favor of abortion access. But his challenger, Republican Doug Mastriano, said on June 24 that “Roe v. Wade is rightly relegated to the ash heap of history. As the abortion debate returns to the states, Pennsylvania must be prepared to lead the nation in being a voice for the voiceless.”

In Pennsylvania, 32,123 abortions were performed in 2020; 46 percent were to White women (44 percent to Black women), 88 percent were to unmarried mothers. The largest age group to receive abortions were 25-29 year-olds, followed by 20-24 year-olds. In Allegheny County, 3,083 abortions were performed. Data on the ethnicities of the women in Allegheny County who received abortions was not made available.

“To hear the news that Roe v. Wade was overturned hit me like a ton of bricks,” said La’Tasha D. Mayes, the soon-to-be state Representative for House District 24, which includes Homewood, East Liberty and Lincoln-Lemington. Mayes has been at the forefront of women’s rights and leadership development for Black women and girls as the founder of New Voices for Reproductive Justice, a multi-state organization. “We have been operating under this false idea that women, transgender and non-binary folx have control over our bodies when the reality is — our government has control over our bodies.”

In a 2017 research poll conducted by the National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda organization, 71 percent of Black Pennsylvanians said that Roe v. Wade “should remain the law of the land.” In the same poll, 87 percent of Black Pennsylvanians agreed that women should have the right to make their own decision about abortion, and 81 percent of Blacks in the state believed that Black women should be trusted to make decisions for themselves.

“In overturning Roe v. Wade, the court eliminated any pretense that women are equal under the law,” said the organization’s president and CEO, Marcela Howell, in a statement. “They have made clear that the founding fathers’ declaration the right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ did not — and does not — include women or birthing people.”

Howell added: “Black women and birthing people will continue to be disparately impacted by attacks on our reproductive health. Eliminating abortion rights in many states will be an inconvenience for women and birthing people of means — mostly White — who will be able to afford the high cost of accessing safe abortion. Many Black women and birthing people will lose all access — for them, the cost may be their health, lives or livelihood.”

Sydney Etheredge, an African American woman, has been Planned Parenthood of Western Pa.’s executive director since January. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading provider and advocate of high-quality, affordable sexual and reproductive health care. “While we knew this could be our reality following the leaked opinion, knowing now that we will be living in a post-Roe world is heartbreaking,” Etheredge said in a statement. “For now, abortion is still legal in Pennsylvania, and we will do everything in our power to keep it that way. Your decision to control your lives, bodies and futures should be yours, and yours alone, and we will not compromise on this.”

But Rev. A. Marie Walker, servant pastor of St. John Baptist Church in Wilmerding, told the New Pittsburgh Courier she is against abortion. She referenced the Bible, the book of Jeremiah, chapter 1: “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And before thou came forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee. And I ordained the prophet unto the nation.”

“As a believer, we believe life begins at conception,” Rev. Walker said. “We honor the life when it’s in the womb. It’s a life because the baby can feel, it moves, it eats, and it’s being formed. It’s important that we honor that life.”

In May, the Washington Post cited a March 2022 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center which found that Black Protestants (66 percent) were more likely than Catholics overall (56 percent) or White evangelicals (24 percent) to agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

The study implies that there are at least a third of Black churchgoers who want abortion banned. Include Rev. Walker in that category.

“Yes, it’s our (the woman’s) bodies, but that little person living in there is a separate human being,” Rev. Walker said. “I guarantee you that any mother that’s had an abortion, it was a difficult choice, one that’s not taken lightly. I don’t think you ever get over it.”

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