FiveThirtyEight reporter Alexandra Samuels faced intense backlash on Monday after she published an article claiming the anti-abortion movement was motivated by racism.
The article titled, "How The Fight To Ban Abortion Is Rooted In The ‘Great Replacement’ Theory'" written by Samuels and her colleague Monica Potts, argued how anti-abortion supporters are connected to the "Great Replacement Theory," the idea that White people in the U.S. and around the world were being systematically replaced by non-White populations through outbreeding and immigration.
Samuels face criticism after she shared the article on Twitter.
"The fight over abortion rights is tied to the "great replacement" theory and fears that white people will become a minority," she tweeted. "That fear never left the anti-abortion movement which, at its core, has always been about upholding white supremacy."
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The article was met with ridicule for what critics said was a lack of evidence and muddled reasoning. Meanwhile, other critics highlighted how a majority of abortion clinics are located in minority neighborhoods.
Reason editor Liz Wolfe said the article was making a "terrible accusation."
"This is a terrible accusation, backed by minimal evidence & unclear reasoning, and I'm frankly stunned to have read an attempt at justifying this quite-bad thesis in @FiveThirtyEight," she tweeted.
She followed up by retweeting a previous statement about how "more black babies are aborted each year than born alive" in New York City.
Daily Wire's Matt Walsh echoed Wolfe and noted how Black women make up a disproportionate percentage of abortions.
"Black women are responsible for a vastly disproportionate percentage of abortions. Abortion bans will increase the black population by percentage much more than it will increase the white population by percentage. Otherwise, great point Alexandra. Not stupid at all. Thank you," he tweeted.
Townhall editor and Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich commented on the placement of abortion facilities.
"Considering the vast majority of abortion clinics are in minority neighborhoods, this is total garbage," she tweeted.
Omitted from Samuels' article was any mention of pioneer of the abortion-rights movement Margaret Sanger. Sanger, who was a birth control activist and nurse who later founded what became Planned Parenthood in 1916, held controversial views on race. She was a supporter of eugenics, often justifying that support with racist views.
"It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets," Sanger wrote in an essay titled, "What Every Girl Should Know."
Planned Parenthood disavowed Sanger last year in a New York Times op-ed.
"We will no longer make excuses or apologize for Margaret Sanger's actions," Planned Parenthood CEO and president Alexis McGill Johnson wrote. "But we can't simply call her racist, scrub her from our history, and move on. We must examine how we have perpetuated her harms over the last century — as an organization, an institution, and as individuals."
