This narrative of replacement theory is regularly raisedby right-wing media with false and racist claims about the dangers of demographic changes and declining birth rates. For example, Fox News' Tucker Carlson fearmongered about the George Soros solution to decreasing birth rates in Hungary, which he described as attempts to import a replacement population from the Third World. Carlson also claimed, At this rate, unless something changes dramatically, there will be no more Hungarians. In another instance, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt suggested abortion bans are policy solutions to correct the declining birth rates in America. Staunch abortion opponent and white nationalist Rep. Steve King (R-IA) also pushed this fearmongering rhetoric on CNN's New Day when he asserted, you cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else's babies. You've got to keep your birth rate up.
Not only have right-wing media and anti-abortion groups amplified white supremacist rhetoric, they have also attempted to hijack language from the civil rights and abolitionist movements. Increasingly, anti-abortion extremists disavow the pro-life label, instead referring to themselves as abortion abolitionists. These abortion opponents favor the ideological purity of eliminating abortion altogether rather than restricting access with incrementalist approaches. Appropriating language from both the abolitionist and the civil rights movements, so-called abortion abolitionists attempt to make their extremism more tolerable by consistently compar[ing] themselves to anti-slavery abolitionists.
Right-wing media also seize on the opportunity to whitewash and co-opt the language of the civil rights and abolitionist movements. Right-wing news outlets such as The Federalist and National Review are quick to tokenize and appropriate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s image to claim he would support harsh abortion restrictions when, in fact, King was a vocal supporter of Planned Parenthood and reproductive freedom.
Abortion opponents and right-wing media also consistently propagandize falsehoods about abortion that are immersed in anti-Black racism, such as falsely claiming that abortion advocates promote Black genocide. Dan Forest, the Republican lieutenant governorin North Carolina recently invoked the myth during an event celebrating King, stating, There is no doubt that when Planned Parenthood was created, it was created to destroy the entire Black race." Furthermore, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant used similar rhetoric in a 2018 press conference, implying that black women are participating in the genocide of 20 million African American children through legal abortions.
Right-wing media have amplified this falsehood. For example, Fox News host Laura Ingraham, referred to Planned Parenthood on her podcast as slaughtering African Americans. Ingraham's sidekick Raymond Arroyo echoed her sentiment, repeating alarmist claims about Black genocide." Similarly, Pat Robertson has boosted this false narrative, alleging that Planned Parenthoodis an organization that's trying to set up Black genocide. Anti-abortion outlets such as LifeNews.com have attempted to co-opt Black History Month by pushing this false claim.Declarations of Black genocide are unfounded and racist, no matter how many times right-wing media outlets attempt to claim otherwise.Reproductive rights advocates have consistently called out this falsehood as erroneous. Laurie Bertram-Roberts, executive director of Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, refuted Bryant's allegations, stating, Black women are not committing genocide when the same women hes talking about are the mothers of black children. Bertram-Roberts explained to ThinkProgress how the anti-abortion movement seldom frames white women who have the most abortions in the country as having committed genocide and instead uses this tactic to shame and stigmatize Black women. As ThinkProgress wrote, abortion opponents and right-wing media tether abortion and racism because of the real history of medical racism" of the anti-abortion movement, such as the coerced sterilization of people of color throughout the 20th century. Attorney Shyrissa Dobbins clarified in the National Black Law Journal that the falsehood depends on denying Black women their humanity and their agency to make medical decisions regarding their reproduction."
Furthermore, right-wing media and abortion opponents perpetuate anti-Blackness by advancing the false equivalency between the constitutional right to abortion and slavery. In January, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos used this fallacy when she praised the Trump administration's unwavering support for anti-abortion causes at an event hosted by Colorado Christian University. The Colorado Times Recorder quoted DeVos' speech:
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