Dreaming of An End to Racial Disparities in Reproductive Health

As we celebrate the life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and advances in racial equality in the United States, it is important to remember that reproductive health is just one of the many areas in which satisfactory progress remains elusive. In the face of persisting (and indeed rising) racial economic disparities...

______________________________________________________

The New York Times op-ed column: How Fares the Dream?, by Paul Krugman:

“I have a dream,” declared Martin Luther King, in a speech that has lost none of its power to inspire. And some of that dream has come true. When King spoke in the summer of 1963, America was a nation that denied basic rights to millions of its citizens, simply because their skin was the wrong color. Today racism is no longer embedded in law. And while it has by no means been banished from the hearts of men, its grip is far weaker than once it was. . . .

Yet if King could see America now, I believe that he would be disappointed, and feel that his work was nowhere near done. He dreamed of a nation in which his children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But what we actually became is a nation that judges people not by the color of their skin — or at least not as much as in the past — but by the size of their paychecks. And in America, more than in most other wealthy nations, the size of your paycheck is strongly correlated with the size of your father’s paycheck.

Goodbye Jim Crow, hello class system. . . .

______________________________________________________

...we will continue to see racial disparities in reproductive and sexual health:

______________________________________________________

Center for Reproductive Rights: Addressing Disparities in Reproductive and Sexual Health Care in the U.S.:

The U.S. spends at least twice as much per capita on healthcare than almost every other western industrialized country, but has some of the widest disparities in health outcomes.  Racial disparities are particularly pronounced in reproductive and sexual health. Women of color fare worse than white women in every aspect of reproductive health. . . .