United States Sees 53 Million Abortions Since Roe in 1973

Life News ^ | 11/26/10 | Steven Ertelt

[wagglebee]

Americans saw a political milestone this month as more pro-life lawmakers were elected to the House of Representatives than ever before, but the nation also quietly reached a less joyful mark.

In January, the National Right to Life Committee provided a new analysis of the total number of abortions done in the 37 years since the Roe v. Wade decision.

The Supreme Court handed down its controversial ruling — allowing virtually unlimited abortions at any time throughout pregnancy — in January 1973. The NRLC analysis found that 52 million unborn children had been killed in abortions as of January.

The analysis also found that the best estimate for the current number of annual abortions in the United States — involving both the surgical abortion procedure as well as the dangerous abortion drug RU 486 — is 1.2 million.

As a result, the United States likely passed the 53 million abortion mark on November 1 — the day before Americans went to the polls to vote in a pro-life House majority and target President Barack Obama’s pro-abortion allies for defeat.

Obama has done everything in his power to advance abortion and continue that pro-abortion legacy of the Supreme Court, including naming two more pro-abortion jurists in Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. He has also expanded that 53 million abortions by authorizing abortion funding in various instances and decreasing funds for abstinence education.

In its survey of abortion numbers, NRLC goes to the source by relying on the Guttmacher Institute, the former research arm of Planned Parenthood, which receives numbers directly from abortion centers themselves.

That’s because the Centers for Disease Control has never tabulated accurate numbers of abortions. The CDC relies on figures from state health departments, some of which rely on voluntary reporting — and it hasn’t had data from some states such as California and New Hampshire for more than a decade.

“Because of these different methods of data collection, GI has consistently obtained higher counts than the CDC. CDC researchers have admitted it probably undercounts the total number of abortions because reporting laws vary from state to state and some abortionists probably do not report or under-report the abortions they perform,” NRLC explained in January.

Digging into the numbers, the NRLC analysis from earlier this year showed abortion numbers rising in the 1970s and, in the 1980s, abortion eventually mainstreamed itself to the point that about 1.55 million abortions were done annually until the early 1990s.

At that point, as crisis pregnancy centers began turning the corner with the use of ultrasounds, pro-life state legislation began to take hold and the Internet allowed the pro-life perspective to flourish, abortions began to decline.

“After reaching a high of over 1.6 million in 1990, the number of abortions annually performed in the U.S. has dropped back to levels not seen since the late 1970s,” NRLC says.

The Guttmacher Institutes most recent abortion figures, from 2005, confirm the downward trend from a high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990 to 1.2 million that year. Without any hard figures in the last few years, NRLC estimates the number of abortions from 2006 to today at the same rate of 1.2 million that GI reported.

To calculate the overall number of abortions, NRLC includes the hard figures from 1973-2005, the estimates for the last few years and also includes the Guttmacher Institute’s admission that its own figures are likely about three percent lower than the actual totals because of potential errors in reporting.

National Right to Life estimated that, in January, there have been 52,008,665 abortions using either surgical or the abortion drug (RU 486) method since Roe v. Wade.

NRLC director of research and education Randy O’Bannon talked with LifeNews.com at that time about the figures.

“Abortion has taken a terrible toll on America. We’ve now lost more than 52 million of our sons, daughters, friends, and neighbors and we are a much poorer nation for it,” he said.

“Over the past twenty years, however, we have seen that pro-life efforts can make a difference, as the number of abortions performed in the U.S. has declined from 1.6 million to 1.2 million a year. We’ve still a long way to go, obviously, but we see that pro-life legislation, education, and outreach can save and has saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” O’Bannon added. “Our task is great, but our cause is just.”

[BenKenobi]

“You clearly implied that the baby boomers were responsible for LBJ and JFK, by way of trying to blame them for all the evils of the world.”

Baby boomers are responsible for the children they aborted under Roe. They aren’t so much responsible for passing the law, but they are responsible for their participation.

It wasn’t the greatest generation that were aborting their kids, it was the baby boomers. In 1972, the oldest would have been in their mid twenties.

The argument that they aren’t/weren’t responsible for such argues that the greatest generation forced the boomers to kill their own kids, but this is more of the passing of the buck to which we’ve been accustomed.

“3. “No LBJ, no Sarah T Hughes...” Sarah Hughes was appointed by JFK, not LBJ.”

Considering as she was a friend of LBJ long before she was appointed, I’d surmise, as LBJ and her say, that this friendship is why she was appointed in the first place.

“In the immortal word of LBJ himself, ‘Horseshit.’

So their personal friendship prior to her appointment is irrelevant? Especially given LBJ’s political instincts? Hardly.

“Kennedy took that election through fraud, and would have done it with or without LBJ. I mean, you don’t really want to say that people who voted for JFK would have voted for Nixon if LBJ had not been on the ticket, do you? Sort of like people who voted for McLame would have voted for the Bamtard if Governor Palin hadn’t been on the ticket.”

He won Texas by 2 percent. Perhaps the fraud was limited to Illinois, but given LBJ, I sincerely doubt this happened. No LBJ on the ticket, Nixon rolls to another 8 years of Republicanism a la Eisenhower. Eisenhower had proven that Texas wasn’t part of the solid south anymore, winning Texas quite handily in both of his elections. You think Dims are stupid? You think he picked LBJ at random?

“Didn’t you vote for abortion? Did you vote for JFK or LBJ?”

And you’ve sidestepped the question. Did you, or didn’t you? I don’t know whether you are a boomer. You didn’t vote for JFK or LBJ, great. But you are arguing that the greatest generation IS responsible because they did vote for JFK and LBJ.

That simply changes the argument to Clinton. If Boomers sincerely opposed abortion, why did they vote for Clinton.

“Yeah, a hell of a lot more guts than the military shows staring down the gun barrels of our country’s enemies. Why, I’d rather be shot a hundred times than have some Code Pink witch yell mean things at me.”

You are aware that there have been shots fired in the past, and that they have attempted to kill people? You think their thugs aren’t willing to bring weapons to try to break up demonstrations?

I’ve seen it all.

[dsc]

“Baby boomers are responsible for the children they aborted under Roe.”

As are the older and younger killers.

“They aren’t so much responsible for passing the law, but they are responsible for their participation.”

Weasel all you want. You made all sorts of bogus claims that went far beyond individual responsibility for one’s actions, and supported them with incorrect information.

“It wasn’t the greatest generation that were aborting their kids, it was the baby boomers.”

There you go with those sweeping, all-or-nothing claims again. A person who was born in 1939 was 33 in 1972. In 1979 that person was 40. Baby boomers were not the only people who killed babies, and many baby boomers were on the right side of the culture war.

“The argument that they aren’t/weren’t responsible for such”

Nobody made any such argument. You set up that stalking horse just to try and look smart for knocking it down.

“I’d surmise”

Unwisely.

“that this friendship is why she was appointed in the first place.”

You seem to be unaware that JFK and LBJ despised each other. JFK would have taken pleasure in telling LBJ to go piss up a rope if Johnson asked him for a favor.

“So their personal friendship prior to her appointment is irrelevant? Especially given LBJ’s political instincts?”

Instincts? Is that what passes for reasoned argument among the people you hang out with? Johnson was not in a position to appoint her himself. He would have had to twist arms. It might be possible that he got her appointed to her first interim stint on the Texas bench, before her multiple re-elections, but not that he browbeat Kennedy into appointing her to the federal bench.

“Perhaps the fraud was limited to Illinois”

Of course not.

“No LBJ on the ticket, Nixon rolls to another 8 years of Republicanism a la Eisenhower.”

Your premises do not support your conclusion. LBJ was not the only crooked demonrat in Texas. For that matter, the DNC would have—perhaps did—dispatched operatives to Texas to ensure that the fraud was adequate.

“Eisenhower had proven that Texas wasn’t part of the solid south anymore, winning Texas quite handily in both of his elections.”

Pish-posh. Eisenhower won on the basis of his role in WWII, and that proved nothing about the political convictions of Texas voters.

“You think Dims are stupid?”

They are cunning in some ways, and dumb as so many sacks of crap in the others.

“You think he picked LBJ at random?”

He picked LBJ mainly to keep his enemies close, to have him inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in.

“And you’ve sidestepped the question.”

No, I showed that the question provides no support for your rabid rants about baby-boomers.

“Did you, or didn’t you?”

As a baby-boomer, I wasn’t old enough to vote in those elections.

“But you are arguing that the greatest generation IS responsible because they did vote for JFK and LBJ.”

No wonder you’re so confused. You just don’t understand what people are saying. I said that we did not vote for abortion, that it was forced on us by the liberal judiciocracy. You are trying ruse after ruse to avoid facing that proposition, and I am quickly ceasing to care.

To say that abortion was forced on us by the liberal judiciocracy is in no way to say that the greatest generation is responsible; they had no opportunity to vote, either.

“That simply changes the argument to Clinton.”

Only in your world of false dichotomies.

“If Boomers sincerely opposed abortion, why did they vote for Clinton.”

Clinton “won” both elections with less than 25% of the votes of all those eligible to vote. Of that number, a big chunk were fraudulent. He got the black vote, the Spanish-speaking vote, the sodomite vote, the deranged feminist vote, the dead vote, mentally challenged vote, and on and on. What he did not get were the votes of a majority of the baby-boomers then alive.

You seem to have this notion that the baby-boomers are homogeneous in their political opinions. That is nonsense. Every time you’ve said “the boomers this” or “the boomers that,” you’ve been wrong about at least half the boomers.

When Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton only 49% of eligible voters showed up. Of that number, Count Taxula and Algore took 49.2%, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp took 40.7%, and the little hand grenade with the bad haircut took 8.4% (down from 18.9% four years earlier).

Those numbers indicate that less than one quarter of those eligible to vote in the United States cast their votes for the Clintstones. After subtracting for fraud, the number is even smaller. But according to you, the baby-boomers are responsible for the election of Beelzebubba.

You’re just dead wrong about a lot of things you have asserted as facts in this thread. Trying to blame the baby-boomers for the progress the Gramscian left have made in their long march through the institutions is just plain silly.

“You are aware that there have been shots fired in the past, and that they have attempted to kill people? You think their thugs aren’t willing to bring weapons to try to break up demonstrations?”

Oh, stop trying to steal valor.

“I’ve seen it all.”

And, apparently, understood none of it.

[BenKenobi]

“Trying to blame the baby-boomers for the progress the Gramscian left have made in their long march through the institutions is just plain silly.”

You’re right. They did not start the problem, and this is the reason why freedom is only ever a generation away from extinction, because each generation has to be taught how freedom works.

You are also right that many boomers have been on the right side of the culture war. All I’m saying is that the vast majority are on the other side.

The problem is that baby boomers in general have done a really shitty job at transmitting America’s freedoms.

One third of their children have been aborted, dumped, thrown in the trash heap. What could we do with 50 million more young adults?

“Oh, stop trying to steal valor.”

Who says I was talking about myself. I’ve seen people assaulted for the crime of standing up for these kids, and there have been occasions of deadly force.

I stand by my statement, because it reflects what I’ve seen. There’s been a prolifer who has been assassinated by a pro choicer who said that he wanted to get rid of him. Maybe you’ve heard of Jim Poullion? Shot and killed.

“I said that we did not vote for abortion, that it was forced on us by the liberal judiciocracy.”

Horse hockey. “Safe Legal and Rare?” If boomers had voted to reject their mascot, Bill Clinton, he never would have been president, and then I could understand the argument that boomers actually *care* about anything at all.

And I don’t exactly see how arguing only a quarter of the people actually voted for him as a good point. Why didn’t the boomers who you claim actually care about prolife issues bother to go to the poll booth and vote for Bush Sr?