Politics

Obama program aims to reduce ‘births’ among blacks, Latinos

Vince Coglianese Editorial Director
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President Barack Obama is attempting to lower the rate of “births” — and separately, pregnancies — among blacks and Latinos.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists reducing “births” as one of the top goals of Obama’s “Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative.”

The language on the CDC’s website makes clear that the program seeks to reduce the rate of both pregnancies and “births” among minorities.

Specifically, the CDC says the “purpose of this program is to demonstrate the effectiveness of innovative, multicomponent, communitywide initiatives in reducing rates of teen pregnancy and births in communities with the highest rates, with a focus on reaching African American and Latino/Hispanic youth aged 15–19 years.”

Eighteen- and 19-year olds are technically adults, but Obama’s program aims to reduce births among women that age as well.

The Daily Caller discovered the abortion-suggesting language during a routine analysis of government publications.

The CDC says the distinction is one without a difference.

“On the website for the initiative there is no distinction between the two,” CDC spokeswoman Renee Brown-Bryant wrote in an email to TheDC.

Although the CDC site explaining the program makes no mention of the word “abortion,” the $110 million program — as funded for FY2010 — bankrolls a range of featured “partners,” some of whom readily encourage abortion.

The Obama administration has set a goal that those partners reduce teen births in the “target community” by 10% by next year.

Advocates for Youth, for instance, is one of the program’s five “national partners.” The group, which took in over $1.5 million in government funding in fiscal year 2013 according to its annual report, advocates that teenagers consider abortion when they become pregnant.

“Young women need the right to safe and legal abortion,” the government-funded group writes, saying that a young woman shouldn’t be forced to “carry a pregnancy she didn’t want to term.”

Advocates for Youth lists ending “the stigma and shame women are made to feel about abortion” among its goals.

Hartford, Conn.’s city government received a $900,000 slice of the CDC funding alone. According to that program’s website, Planned Parenthood of Southern New England serves as a partner in their initiative. Local teens can use the city’s site to locate nearby abortion providers and arrange appointments.

Obama has made no secret of his support for abortion and how he views its role in society, marking the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade in January by applauding “reproductive freedom.”

“And we resolve to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies,” Obama said in the statement, saying that abortions afford women the “freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.”

Even before the president’s program came into existence, teen birth rates in the U.S. had been substantially declining. The CDC notes that by 2011, teen births had dropped to a record low, with 329,797 babies born to women aged 15-19. The CDC claims that “the reasons for the declines are not clear,” but pro-life site LifeNews.com attributed the drop to a mixture of teen abstinence and an uptick in the abortion rate.

While reducing teen pregnancies receives bipartisan support, abortions have had a deep impact on blacks and Hispanics in the United States.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently reported that more black women in that city aborted their pregnancies (31,328) than gave birth (24,758) in 2012. There were 22,917 abortions among Hispanic New Yorkers in the same time frame. In all, CNS News notes, black and Hispanic abortions accounted for 73 percent of the city’s total abortions that year.

The CDC is not yet prepared to share any results of the president’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative. “At the conclusion of the project, in September 2015, data will be analyzed and evaluated,” Brown-Bryant told TheDC.

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