fore, the United States recorded its lowest abortion-to-live-birth ratio since 1977 (Dillon, 1995, p. 116). The typical patient was white, younger than 19, unmarried, had had no previous live births, and was undergoing the procedure for the first time.
Yet, among these patients, a disproportionately high number were black women or other minorities. While the overall abortion rate has continued to fall, the rate among minority women has been on a steady increase. Black women are now about twice as likely as white women to choose abortion (Murray, 1995, March, p. 327). This increase is the result of a number of factors; sociologists disagree on all the reasons, but their studies indicate some of the forces at work.
Loretta J. Ross (1992, Fall) argues that, from the middle of the 19th century to the present, the growth rate of the black population in American has been cut in half, a crisis precipitated by poverty, disease, and coerced birth control, including both legal and illegal abortions. She believes that black activism has resulted in the establishment of family planning clinics and the defense of abortion rights, both of which she sees as movements of particular importance to black Americans.
Michele Dillon (1995) contends that the moral aspects of abortion make debates about it different from other political discussions. She also notes that racial issues, including the widespread (though false) perception that abortion is primarily a choice of minority women and an alternative to responsible birth control, make the subject difficult to inspire "an ongoing public conversation about U.S. cultural tradition and how it should be variously expressed in contemporary laws and practices" (p. 132).
Clyde Wilcox (1992, Spring) argues that religiosity and doctrinal
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