President and CEO of Black Women's Health Imperative Linda Goler Blount recently penned an op-ed claiming that when women don't have access to abortions, they will "descend into and remain in poverty."

"There are those who view poverty as if it were a choice, as if poverty could only be the result of a series of bad decisions," Blount writes. "It is not a character flaw."

Poverty for many women, in her view, is a direct result of having little or no access to reproductive information or child planning services. Even if those women have some responsibility in the matter, Blount doesn't expect them to rely entirely on self control:

If she doesn’t have health insurance, then she likely can’t afford contraceptives. If a woman is poor and lives in a state without Medicaid expansion, she may not be able to afford to buy health insurance from the exchange. That apparently leaves her with one choice: abstinence.

Should she be condemned for engaging in the most basic human activity?

Pointing to a study that found affordability to be the main reason women abort their babies, Blount said, "That's understandable." She goes on to cite average costs of raising a child, courtesy of the Department of Agriculture's findings, showing that most couples spend around $200,000 per child from birth to leaving the nest.

And women of color especially, Blount argues, hardly stand a chance given those numbers and, therefore, must have access to abortion:

When a low-income mother is able to plan her pregnancies, she is much more likely to be able to provide for her baby. When she cannot get an abortion, if that is her choice, she is three times more likely to descend into and remain in poverty. Women of color are more likely to live in poverty, and more likely to suffer the consequences of an unintended pregnancy.

But again, because celibacy is not a viable option, poor women need advocacy. Instead, Blount complains, they are "attacked" by "anti-choice" groups who spread their message via "grotesque" billboards -- "The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb." -- near minority communities. Also, she perceives a lack of legislative voices in Congress and local governments where the vast majority are white and male.

Poverty to Blount "is many things." To her, "it's a carcinogen" that causes people to suffer from hypertension and diabetes. But it is one of the root "causes" of poverty that has Blount so concerned -- "the birth of an unexpected child." She relates a story to bolster her argument:

[A] single mother of three working a low-wage job, experienced two life-changing events. First in July, just four days after moving into a rental home with her children, her boyfriend set fire to the house and burned it to the ground, destroying all of their possessions. She had not yet had the chance to secure insurance and so was unable to replace anything. Two weeks later, while living in an emergency shelter, she went to the hospital because she was not feeling well and found out she was HIV-positive and had been for some time. Her absences due to illness resulted in her losing her job, and for the next eight months, she moved from one friend’s house to the other. Now, imagine if [she] had been pregnant.

Blount and her organization promises to help care for poor women, to be critical but not accusatory, to observe and acknowledge the limitations placed on minority women by external forces, but most of seeks "to create a culture where every woman can do her best."