Author Gene Burns, who wrote a book about the legalization of abortion and birth control wrote:
“There was an instance, in Georgia, of a pro [abortion] reform lobbyist attempting to sway right-wing Governor Lester Maddox by raising the specter of white women becoming pregnant as a result of rape by black men.”
Gene Burns The Moral Veto: Framing Contraception, Abortion, and Cultural Pluralism in the United States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 188
This was cited in:
Sager C Jayne and Lauren F Gooch Georgia Abortion Act of 1968: A Study in Legislative Process (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Department of Health Administration, School of Public Health and Carolina Population Center, 1972) 57
Despite this revelation, Burns does not believe that racism was a main reason behind legalizing abortion.
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