Arizona congressman claims almost half of all African-American babies are killed by abortion

U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., has been active in the nation’s capital recently, lobbying for legislation he introduced that would ban abortions based on race or gender.

Critics say the proposed ban is "stereotyping," as women seek abortions for a multitude of reasons, such as financial constraints.

Franks presented a series of abortion statistics at an April 14 House subcommittee hearing on the legislation, called the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, or PRENDA.

"Today in America, between 40 and 50 percent of all African-American babies, virtually 1-in-2 are killed before they are born, which is a greater cause of death for African-Americans than heart disease, cancer, diabetes, AIDS and violence combined," Franks said.

The congressman’s matter-of-fact claim intrigued us, so we decided to check it out.

Limited data

Franks’ spokeswoman, Destiny Edwards, referenced multiple reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, for his claim.

Because Franks is talking specifically about abortion, we did not account for babies who may die as a result of domestic violence, for example, before birth.

Guttmacher notes that African-American women accounted for an estimated 37 percent of the 1.21 million total abortions performed in 2008. That would in theory translate to 447,700 abortions. That same year, according to the CDC, 670,809 African-American babies were born.

But Guttmacher’s abortion data is based on surveys with women and abortion providers. It is not a complete picture.

Plus, total abortions dropped to about 1.06 million in 2011, but Guttmacher doesn’t have updated demographic breakdowns, Guttmacher Institute spokeswoman Rebecca Wind said.

The CDC’s data is similarly imperfect.

As we’ve noted in a previous abortion claim from PolitiFact Florida, the CDC does not have a complete record of abortions. Most states require hospitals, facilities and physicians to report all abortions to a central health agency.  

But not every state reports this abortion data to the feds -- and they’re not required to either. The data also leaves out more than 20 states, including Arizona, California and Florida.

According to the CDC’s 2012 data, the most recent available, the abortion ratio for non-Hispanic African-American women was 435 abortions per 1,000 African-American live births. But Nikki Mayes, a CDC spokeswoman, said that interpreting the ratio as a percent wouldn't be fair. Live births exclude stillbirths and miscarriages. According to the Mayo Clinic, 10 to 20 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.

The second half of Franks’ claim, comparing other causes of death, is even more complicated.

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A woman holds a sign that says, “I want my daughter to have the right to abortion that I didn’t have.”

CDC data is split among leading causes of death between African-American men and women.

For African-American men, the leading causes of death are heart disease (24.1 percent), cancer (23.3 percent) and accidents (5.5 percent). Diabetes accounts for 3.9 percent of deaths and HIV, not AIDS, makes up 2.1 percent.

For African-American women, it's heart disease (24.1 percent), cancer (22.6 percent) and stroke (6.4 percent). Diabetes among African-American women account for 4.6 percent of deaths, while accidents make up 2.8 percent of deaths. 

Our ruling

Franks said, "Today in America, between 40 and 50 percent of all African-American babies, virtually 1-in-2 are killed before they are born."

Data suggests a disparity in the number of abortions performed on African-American women than other races.

But saying that "between 40 and 50 percent of all African-American babies" are aborted goes beyond the limits of the data. Federal data doesn’t account for all 50 states, and fails to factor in pregnancies that end in a miscarriage.

Private data is based on surveys and is years out of date.

We rate Franks’ claim as Mostly False.

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