Republican Representative Mary Miller created a scandal over the weekend by claiming that the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling granting the right to abortion is a “historic victory for white life” ( historic victory for white lifehe said in English) during an event with former President Donald Trump.

“President Trump, on behalf of all American patriots in MAGA, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white lives on the Supreme Court,” Miller said at a rally for the former president on Saturday.

Quickly, the Illinois representative’s spokespersons clarified that she was “wrong” and that what she meant was that it was a “Victory for the right to life” ( right to lifein English), something that may sound similar to some but has a very different meaning.

The episode reminded others of the Congresswoman’s controversial statements in January 2021, upon her arrival in Congress, in which she said: “Hitler was right about one thing, he said, ‘He who has the young in the future’.

On this occasion, unlike her quick explanations and correction of her comment over the weekend, it took several days for the rep to apologize and acknowledge a mistake.

This weekend, as Miller praised former President Trump for appointing the three justices who made possible the Supreme Court majority that struck down the half-century rule of Roe v. Wade, with that expression about white women which he later corrected, the audience erupted in applause.

The newspaper columnist The Independent Ahmed Baba underlined it in a message on his Twitter account: “Whether it was a slip or not, the public heard ‘white life’ and did not flinch. They applauded”, leaving to hear that many participants found this expression normal, even legitimate. , despite the racist charge that others may perceive in it.

Miller’s remarks have intensified a controversy that interweaves women’s disparate access to health services in the United States, depending on the community they belong to, and even racist conspiracy theories that argue the white race needs to reproduce more. to avoid the disappearance to which they say he is doomed in the so-called “great replacement”.

But that clashes directly with the fact that the greatest impact of repealing the federal abortion law will be felt precisely by non-white women, who belong to minority groups.

According to 2020 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), black women in the United States are five times more likely to abort than white women, while Latino women are twice as likely.

Many health experts fear that it is the women of these same groups who resort, as in the past before Roe v. Wade, to illegal, potentially harmful and even fatal interventions.

Based on a 2021 study using data on births and abortions between 2014 and 2017, University of Colorado sociologist Amanda Stevenson determined that denying all wanted induced abortions in the United States would increase pregnancy-related deaths about 7% in the first year and 21% in subsequent years.

For black women, the same analysis predicts a 12% increase in deaths in the first year and a 33% increase in subsequent years.

Stevenson’s observation stems from the fact that the United States has the worst maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world, recording 17 maternal deaths per 100,000 births, more than double that of most other high-income countries. France, second on the list, has 8.7, and Canada, third, 8.6.

The explanation lies in the peculiarities of the American health system, in which people with low incomes have fewer possibilities of receiving preventive treatments. And, again, these poverty groups are very much related to the racial group to which one belongs.

Blacks and Hispanics are 1.8 and 1.5 times more likely to live in poverty, respectively, according to 2019 census data, which directly relates to their chances of accessing good health services.

Among far-right groups, there is an insistence on spreading the theory of the great replacement, a racist ideology that claims the white population is intentionally replaced by people of other racesof which they blame the immigration encouraged by liberal politicians and the changes that these immigrants generate in demography.

For them, the low birth rate among whites is a factor that must be corrected and that is why they encourage young couples associated to have as many children as possible.

But while it is true that Hispanics (with 63.8 per thousand) and Pacific Islanders and Hawaiians (with 63.3) have higher birth rates according to CDC data, the majority of births registered in United States falls between the white community, whose women have a lower birth rate, 54.6. Black women record a 57.7.

According to data compiled by the Kaiser Foundation, in 2020 there were 1,843,432 births among white women, compared to 866,713 among Hispanics and 529,911 among blacks. This represents 51% of all births that year.

However, fallacious conspiracy theories ignore the data and continue to spread, aided by social media and the protection they have found in the formal political world, which has lifted them out of the marginality they once found themselves in. .

Even before the 2016 election, many analysts pointed to an undercurrent of sympathy (or commonality of purpose) between Trump’s “movement” and far-right radical groups that promote conspiracy theories.

In 2017, after the incidents in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump assured that “there were good people on both sides”, equating human rights activists with racist groups. And in 2020, in one of the presidential debates, Trump did not expressly condemn white supremacists and told him to “stand back and stand by” were his words. in English).

These radical right-wing groups, which include racist elements and some white supremacists, now find themselves vindicated by their leadership within the Republican Party.