Tuesday was 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade which stated the Constitutional right to privacy, which the Constitution does not declare, allows for abortion. As a federal-level originalist and practicing Catholic no reader of this blog should be surprised that I oppose this ruling. I will be extremely tired today as I am volunteering to support the March for Life. I wish to offer some statistics on the devastation caused by abortion to explain my opinion and actions.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (a special affiliate to Planned Parenthood), the 2009 to 2011 average for abortions in the United States was 1,212,400 per year. That equates to 3,322 per day, 138.4 an hour, 2.3 a minute, or one baby aborted every 26 seconds. This number actually reflects a slight decline in abortions in the United States. 1990 was the high point for abortions in the United States with 1.61 million. That equates to 4,410 a day, 183 an hour, 3 a minute, or one baby every 20 seconds.
By the time you read this the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates there will have been about 55,900,000 abortions in the Untied States since 1973.
Other ways to think about that sum are
Around the world the estimated average of abortions is about 45 million a year. That equates to 123,287.7 a year, 5,137 a day, 85.6 a minute, or one baby aborted every .7 seconds.
Poodlewaddle created a world clock with data of various categories. Click "Deaths" and then "Now" and watch abortion easily become a plurality of all deaths in the world.
Using Alan Guttmacher Institute numbers, the pro-life/anti-abortion website abortion counters states there have been over 1.28 billion abortions in the world since 1980. This is 18% of the world's current total population. That is a death rate of nearly one in five children.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (a special affiliate to Planned Parenthood), the 2009 to 2011 average for abortions in the United States was 1,212,400 per year. That equates to 3,322 per day, 138.4 an hour, 2.3 a minute, or one baby aborted every 26 seconds. This number actually reflects a slight decline in abortions in the United States. 1990 was the high point for abortions in the United States with 1.61 million. That equates to 4,410 a day, 183 an hour, 3 a minute, or one baby every 20 seconds.
By the time you read this the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates there will have been about 55,900,000 abortions in the Untied States since 1973.
Other ways to think about that sum are
- California's population is only 37.7 million and New York state's population is 19.5 million.
- 55.9 million would be worth about 77 electoral votes (one more than the battleground states of Nevada, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida put together).
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| Number of abortions per year according to the Planned Parenthood-aligned Alan Guttmacher Institute |
Poodlewaddle created a world clock with data of various categories. Click "Deaths" and then "Now" and watch abortion easily become a plurality of all deaths in the world.
Using Alan Guttmacher Institute numbers, the pro-life/anti-abortion website abortion counters states there have been over 1.28 billion abortions in the world since 1980. This is 18% of the world's current total population. That is a death rate of nearly one in five children.
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| From Flickr |
5 comments:
Yes, Abortion contributes to lots of losses of potential lives of childeren, But what about their parents? Abortion is mostely a very very desperate act. Mostely as an outcom of preservatives not beeing available or known and/or very bad future prospects for the would-be childeren. So what (kind of)lives are you saving by prohibiting abortion?
Although my opinion is that abortion should be the last resort: Yes it involves lost lives; but our world is already quite full. It is not like we actually really need the numbers.
best regards,
Sun
Sun,
1) World population is actually slowing down and is estimated by almost all demographers to start declining by 2050. Plus, Western countries as well as Japan and South Korea are begining to suffer demographic decline. That nice welfare state can't function without new blood to run it.
2) Who are you to say who lives and who dies? Can we kill off anyone over 60? They lived a long life. How about minorities? Why is murder a crime then? Seriously, answer that question. If someone were to kill you and your loved ones and claim it was to keep down the Earth's population how is that any better than your defense of abortion. You are putting population level above people already alive!
Sadly this is not new. Deep environmentalism is misanthropic. I recommend First Things article about this misanthropy
1) Population growth slowing is not, in itself, a bad thing. It has complications, but it's not the main issue here.
2) There is evidence to support that legalization abortion means that the children born are better cared for and crime decreases. http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
3) While I morally disagree with late term abortion, early term abortion - there are other forms. The morning-after pill, for example, does not kill a baby - it destroys a zygote. Early chemical abortion ends the existence of a blastocyst.
4) For those people that protests the abortion clinics and show up on college campuses with images of delimbed infants, does anyone say the following words to a woman that had an abortion: "I am so sorry that you were put in the position where you had to make this decision. What should be done to help prevent unwanted pregnancies, so we can help women and children?"
5) What about teaching the facts about sex, pregnancy, and other related issues? Abstinence-only education doesn't work; and it assumes that everyone needs to follow the same path in life.
Abortion is a woman's right and needs to stay that way. I agree that there needs to be restriction on late term (3rd trimester abortions); but it is not the court's right to come between a woman and her doctor.
Miss Nurse,
"Abortion is a woman's right and needs to stay that way. I agree that there needs to be restriction on late term (3rd trimester abortions); but it is not the court's right to come between a woman and her doctor."
why restrictions on third term and not others? That implies you now something morally wrong is going on. Does a soul get imparted to the body when the 3rd trimester begins?
William Lloyd Garrison would show slave owners and pro-slavery people pictures of whipped slaves and say "Look at your 'rights'". I suggest you look at your 'rights'.
Its not anything new. Terminating pregnancy is as old as pregnancy. Making it legal just made it safe, instead of being relegated to back alleys.
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