During the first Democratic presidential debate in October 2015, Hillary Clinton proclaimed, “We’ve got to be committed to getting every child to live up to his or her God-given potential.” Cynthia Meyer, who took up the post of deputy press secretary for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in early 2015, fired back with a tweet, “Would help if they had the chance to be born.”
About a month later, in the next Democratic debate Nov. 14, 2015, the episode was repeated. Clinton echoed her earlier comment, again declaring, “Every single one of our children deserves the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential.”
This time, Meyer responded by tweeting, “More Black babies are aborted in NYC than born,” followed by the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. NYC meaning the city of New York.
The pair of exchanges elicited a strong sense of deja vu, but Meyer’s second tweet raised a more specific question about abortion rates among Black women in the Big Apple: Are there more abortions by Black women in NYC than births?
To our inquiry, over email Meyer said her responses were an effort to highlight the value of human life and call attention to NYC’s “startling” numbers, which come from a 2013 report on pregnancy outcomes compiled by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Bureau of Vital Statistics. The numbers have been widely reported by conservative media outlets, including a National Review article.
“To be clear, that tweet came from my personal Twitter account and I was speaking as a private citizen,” Meyer said in an email. “Happy to defend the stats, though.”
Abortions by Black women in NYC outpacing births?
Figuring out the answer to this question proved rather simple. The first place we went was that 2013 report, the most recent data available, which provides exhaustive breakdowns of birth statistics in New York City. The agency lists pregnancy outcomes by race and ethnicity, as well as by borough, type of birth (live birth, C-section, premature) and health of the mother.
During the first Democratic presidential debate in October 2015, Hillary Clinton proclaimed, “We’ve got to be committed to getting every child to live up to his or her God-given potential.” Cynthia Meyer, who took up the post of deputy press secretary for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in early 2015, fired back with a tweet, “Would help if they had the chance to be born.”
About a month later, in the next Democratic debate Nov. 14, 2015, the episode was repeated. Clinton echoed her earlier comment, again declaring, “Every single one of our children deserves the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential.”
This time, Meyer responded by tweeting, “More Black babies are aborted in NYC than born,” followed by the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. NYC meaning the city of New York.
The pair of exchanges elicited a strong sense of deja vu, but Meyer’s second tweet raised a more specific question about abortion rates among Black women in the Big Apple: Are there more abortions by Black women in NYC than births?
To our inquiry, over email Meyer said her responses were an effort to highlight the value of human life and call attention to NYC’s “startling” numbers, which come from a 2013 report on pregnancy outcomes compiled by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Bureau of Vital Statistics. The numbers have been widely reported by conservative media outlets, including a National Review article.
“To be clear, that tweet came from my personal Twitter account and I was speaking as a private citizen,” Meyer said in an email. “Happy to defend the stats, though.”
Abortions by Black women in NYC outpacing births?
Figuring out the answer to this question proved rather simple. The first place we went was that 2013 report, the most recent data available, which provides exhaustive breakdowns of birth statistics in New York City. The agency lists pregnancy outcomes by race and ethnicity, as well as by borough, type of birth (live birth, C-section, premature) and health of the mother.