Billionaire MacKenzie Scott Donates to Pro-Abortion Group

MacKenzie Scott has delivered a $15 million gift to the Guttmacher Institute, Jezebel and Forbes report. Scott is the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and she holds a $45.7 billion fortune thanks to her 4% stake in Amazon. Since her divorce, she has given away billions of dollars to hundreds of worthy organizations, including HBCUs, LGBTQ+ rights groups, and COVID relief efforts.

Her generosity toward Guttmacher, however, is deeply concerning.

The Guttmacher Institute is essentially the research arm of the global abortion movement. It has deep ties to Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses. It described Scott’s gift as coming “at a time of great peril for sexual and reproductive health and rights,” “[a]gainst a challenging backdrop characterized by an alarming erosion of reproductive freedom.”

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that Scott endorses prenatal killing as a solution to societal problems. Wealthy elites like herself are far more likely to support abortion than lower-income people. A 2021 Gallup poll found that 39% of Americans with annual incomes of $100,000 or more believe that abortion should be legal under all circumstances, and many more want abortion legal at least some of the time; only 10% believe that it should be illegal under all circumstances. Among Americans with annual incomes of $40,000 or less, the inverse pattern appears: they are 9 points less likely to support unlimited abortion, and a whopping 14 points more likely to oppose abortion in all circumstances. Roe has forced the United States to follow oligarchic policy preferences on abortion, squashing the voices of working-class people.

The Jezebel author (and, anecdotally, abortion advocates on Twitter) are encouraging Scott to go even more extreme by donating to abortion funds. In other words, they want her to directly subsidize the dismemberment of helpless unborn children. Scott does have a history of taking feedback from the general public, so we must vocally make the case for a better approach.

That case, ironically enough, begins with Guttmacher data. In surveys of post-abortive mothers, they found that financial insecurity (“Can’t afford a baby now”) motivated a whopping 73% of abortions. If someone feels forced by circumstance to sacrifice her baby, how is that “choice” in any meaningful sense?

Let Them Live is a pro-life organization that prevents abortions by paying pregnant mothers’ bills and helping them get on their feet. I inquired about the average amount of financial support a Let Them Live mom needs to reject abortion. The answer was $17,000: a rounding error for MacKenzie Scott, but a life-saving amount for a baby conceived in poverty. For $15 million, Scott could have saved 882 children from abortion!

Suppose she took it a step further and dedicated $2 billion — a mere 4.3% of her wealth — to a pregnancy resource endowment earning (conservatively) 8% annual interest. That would spin off $160 million a year, enough to provide financial security for 9,412 families at risk of abortion every year in perpetuity! And that doesn’t even take into account the generous donations that Scott could leverage from other people in the financial stratosphere if were she to take a boldly pro-life, pro-woman stance.

MacKenzie Scott, do the right thing. Instead of supporting pro-abortion groups that are out of touch with working people, use your privilege to help poor parents keep their babies.

[Photo credit: Alexander Mils on Unsplash]