Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) responded to one of his former Harvard Law School professors over the weekend after he bizarrely suggested conservatives’ opposition to abortion is linked to white supremacy.
Laurence Tribe, professor of constitutional law at Harvard, tweeted Sunday, claiming white supremacists “oppose abortion because they fear it’ll reduce the number of white infants and thus contribute to what they fear as non-white ‘replacement.’”
According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, white women are responsible for 36.9% of abortions in the U.S. while black women are responsible for 36%.
Cruz responded to Tribe’s faulty claim, calling it “deeply deceptive.”
The Texas lawmaker quickly corrected his erroneous claim that more than half of all black babies across the country are aborted. In actuality, the data shows it is just slightly over 40% nationally.
“Still tragically high,” Cruz lamented.
He also noted places like New York City, where thousands more black babies are aborted than born alive each year. Between 2012 and 2016, black mothers terminated 136,426 pregnancies and gave birth to 118,127 babies, according to The Wall Street Journal.
For his part, Tribe responded to Cruz and others who have criticized him.
The law professor said his words had been “misread” by detractors. Tribe went on to assert he never suggested all who oppose abortion are white supremacists.