"Between December 1971 and October 1972, when the cases were reargued, amicus briefs brought different but equally explosive racial arguments to the fore. No prominent civil-rights or black-power organizations participated in amicus advocacy in Roe, but Planned Parenthood, NOW, and other abortion-rights organizations joined amicus briefs arguing that abortion bans had undesirable social consequences, leading to the births of antisocial, poor, and unwanted children who depended on government services. Planned Parenthood, for example, cited a study of children born to women who had unsuccessfully sought abortions in Sweden. The study showed that "many more of the unwanted children than control children . . . registered more often in psychiatric services, . . . were more often registered for antisocial and criminal behavior, ... [and] got public assistance more often." Relying on the same study, an amicus brief joined by several women's organizations, including NOW, asserted that "[i]n addition to the effect of the unwanted pregnancy upon the mother and upon the unwanted children, those unwanted children who are economically or emotionally harmed transmit their psychosocial pathology to succeeding generations." The brief stressed "concrete evidence of, the direct cost in alcoholism, drunkenness, crime, and welfare costs" of existing abortion laws. Abortion opponents responded to these contentions partly by playing up the concerns about race genocide expressed by some in the black power movement. For example, Women for the Unborn, a prominent New York anti-abortion group, argued: The easy solution of abortion discourages more constructive solutions . . . . Such a fear appears to lie behind the opposition to abortion on demand within the black community. Despite assurances by abortion advocates, many members of the black community seem to suspect that numerous abortion clinics in ghetto areas could end up as the white man's solution to the problems of poverty and race. While not explicitly acknowledging these concerns, Planned Parenthood's amicus brief did stress that abortion bans disproportionately harmed poor women, who lacked access to adequate contraceptive services and who might try self-abortion "or may turn to the quack abortionist, and serious injury or even death may result from either course.""
Roe v. Wade

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English

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pp.31-32

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade