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Missouri Republicans are no strangers to inaccurate and offensive language, especially when it comes to abortion. Just like former U.S. Rep. Todd Akins now infamous line, If its a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down, conservatives in the Missouri legislature have made similar horrifying statements.

State Senators Bob Onder (R-Lake St. Louis) and Wayne Wallingford (R-Cape Girardeau) recently gained national attention when they spoke in opposition to a proposed tax increase benefitting the St. Louis Zoo, because they oppose St. Louis Board Bill 203, the reproductive nondiscrimination ordinance, which was signed into law in February. Onder, whose bill targeting abortion clinics had been opposed through filibuster the night before, said falsely that zoos are more heavily regulated than abortion clinics in Missouri. Missouri is currently the third most restrictive state in the country specific to abortion access, with only one remaining clinic serving over 3 million women.

What was not mentioned in all of the media coverage of Onder was the exchange between Onder had state Sen. Ed Emery (R-Lamar) while debating a bill that would extend SNAP (food assistance) benefits to the elderly at farmers markets.

During that exchange, Emery said that since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, Fifteen and a half million African American babies have been slain in abortions in that same period of time. He went on to compare, as Rep. Mike Moon (R-Ash Grove) had previously done, the abortion rates in the African-American community to the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, Emerys inaccurate rant did not stop there. He went on to misappropriate quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his stance on abortion.

Emery: Martin Luther King said, The negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety. That was Dr. Martin Luther King, great man.

Onder: Now when the Reverend King said that, was he talking about abortion?

Emery: He was talking about abortion.

In fact, in 1960, King served on a committee for a Planned Parenthood study on contraception, explaining, I have always been deeply interested in and sympathetic with the total work of the Planned Parenthood Federation. He repeatedly wrote about why family planning programs are important, and why they need to be funded by the government. In 1966, King received a Margaret Sanger award from Planned Parenthood in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights.

King saw a clear link between the struggle for racial equality and the struggle for reproductive justice. In the acceptance speech he wrote for his award from Planned Parenthoodwhich his wife, Coretta Scott King, accepted in his placehe explained that reproductive rights activists like Planned Parenthoods Margaret Sanger help further broader movements for equality.

Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning, King wrote. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. He went on to say that the African-American community has a special and urgent concern with issues of family planning.

The attempted link between race and abortion to justify opposition to legal abortion is inherently racist. There is no evidence that the reproductive rights movement targets black women, and reproductive justice leaders like Loretta Ross and Dr. Willie Parker say the notion is simply a right-wing effort to drive a wedge into the African-American community. We see evidence of this anti-choice agenda in bills like House Bill 252, which would criminalize pregnant women, like they have in Indiana and Tennessee, or by not expanding Medicaid.

Of course, black women have had very little reproductive choice, historically. During slavery, black women endured forced childbirth. Later, many black women were ordered sterilized by state or local agencies, often without their consent or knowledge. More recently, black women have had to bear the burden of the racist welfare mom stereotype.

The continued dehumanizing debate by white male legislators on womens bodies and the black community continues the trend in Missouri of anti-abortion legislators attempting to make the case that women should not make their own reproductive decisions. Again, the lives of women and especially black women do not matter to these legislators.

The leadership in Jefferson City needs to stop the racist lies about abortion and start working in ways to increase health care access for all Missourians.

Alison Dreith is executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri.

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Setting Missouri Republicans straight on MLK and abortion - St. Louis American