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Counting Our Hot Buttons: Abortion Numbers in Perspective

Mass Graves

By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary)  |  April 20th, 2011 at 01:16 PM  | 

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With the recent debate over federal taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood bringing the abortion debate back to the surface, it is sometimes useful to look at the numbers to get a little perspective on why this issue is such a large one. (All of these are estimates, and sources vary, but there’s no serious debate as to the scale of the numbers).

Number killed or missing in action in all wars in U.S. history: 1,343,812. Adding the wounded: 2,489,335.

Number killed or missing in action in U.S. wars since 1973: 12,387. Adding the wounded: 96,680.

Number of executions in U.S. history dating back to 1608: 15,269.

Number of executions in U.S. history dating back to 1930: 3,859.

Number of executions in U.S. history dating back to 1977 (after the Supreme Court lifted a decade-long moratorium): 1,099 through 2008.

Number killed in the September 11 attacks: 2,977.

Number of detainees waterboarded by the CIA under President Bush: 3.

Number of abortions in the U.S. since 1973: 53,310,843 through 2010.

Number of abortions per year in the U.S. since 1973: 1,402,917.

Number of abortions per month in the U.S. since 1973: 116,910.

Number of abortions per week in the U.S. since 1973: 26,979.

Number of abortions per day in the U.S. since 1973: 3,841.

Number of abortions by Planned Parenthood in the U.S. in 2009: 332,278, more than 900 per day, or 27.6% of all abortions in the U.S.

You know, there are a lot of issues I care about, as a conservative Republican. I don’t especially like having to draw lines in the sand over abortion, and if you’re reading this, even if you’re pro-life, chances are you don’t either. But it is useful at times to prick our consciences with the sheer scale of this atrocity, happening daily under our noses. Liberal activists and lawyers devote massive efforts every year to battling the death penalty – yet all the executions of the post-Roe era don’t even add up to a third of a day’s worth of the number of abortions. We agonize, and rightly so, over the cost in life of our wars – but the toll of abortion is equal to fighting the Battle of Antietam, or two Battles of Okinawa, every single week, or two entire Vietnam Wars every month. Our commentariat was racked with paroxysms of moral reproach over three prisoners being waterboarded, yet considers it gauche to even mention well over three thousand abortions daily, each of which destroys a biologically unique human being. (Your religion may override your regard for the science, but there’s no way around the fact that an unborn child has his or her own unique genetic code, the definitive scientific hallmark of an individual).

Numbers alone can’t make the moral judgments that constitute public policy for us. But they can certainly inform our sense of perspective. And looking at the number of abortions is a reminder that maybe, sometimes, we go too far in trying to make this just another issue.

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COMMENTS

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  • MikeG (Icythus)

    I’ll settle for sharing it on Facebook.

    Staggering perspective.

  • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

    Having read about Margaret Sanger, I remember well that abortion was originally promoted by eugenicists. That reminds me further that German Physicians built the first small-scale gas chambers in 20th Century Germany as a way to humanely end the lives of the hopelessly senile old. I never feel that its just the unborn that are under attack.

    • http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/profile/semperfi sirjason

      Please accept my apologies if you have viewed this video about BIRTH statistics, thoroughly and scientifically researched round the world, especially the population growth of Muslims invading the EU countries and Western civilisations of freedom loving people!

      This is a huge part of Islam’s worldwide caliphate to rule the world with Sharia` law and the Quar`an. MORE below.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9atIjykihkc&feature=player_embedded

      “There are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe without swords, without guns, without conquest.
      We don?t need terrorists, we don?t need homicide bombers. The 50 million Muslims will turn it [ Europe ] into a Muslim continent within a few decades.” Khadaffi

      This website explains populations needed by a country to survive in great detail. Please send this info viral. Semper Fi.

      http://www.nobility-royalty.com/id89.htm

  • akafroman

    I would literally vote for Karl Marx if he were pro-life and his opponent was pro-choice.

    • http://www.scragged.com petrarch

      Because he’d be lying,

      But I get the point you’re trying to make.

    • westbrook348

      I’m strongly pro-life, but I have no problem supporting certain pro-choice people if they are federalist, small government politicians who protect the constitution. Peter Schiff is one example.

      They will oppose federal funding for abortion.
      They will oppose subsidizing abortion providers of any kind.
      They will support overturning Roe v Wade.

      In addition to those small government positions, they’d also have to support parental notification laws and support a federal amendment against partial birth (3rd trimester) abortion, which could pass.

      These types of pro-choice politicians would at least give the issue back to the states, so we could outlaw abortion in most states. No pro-life politician could hope to do better. A federal amendment banning all abortion would never pass, so it doesn’t matter what someone’s position is on it IMO. If public sentiment changed, perhaps this would be more relevant.

      My point is, I don’t think you should draw a line in the sand and make every vote dependent only on this one issue. Guys like Peter Schiff would do a lot of good for this country, and even though he’s pro-choice, there would no difference between the policies he’d pass and the policies a pro-lifer would pass.

      • markinidaho

        Your point is well taken, but there is a basic error in your premise. You have assumed that the United States survives because it is a democracy, or because it is a Republic, or because we have followed our Constitution. Those premises are incorrect.

        We have survived so long and prospered so much because we have been “One Nation Under God”. No other reason.

        Our murder of these 1,400,000 plus babies every year, our sacrifice of our children to the bloodthirsty god of abortions – whether it be Molech of the Old Testament or Convenience of Roe V. Wade, is spitting in the face of the One that said, “in My image”. The politics can be argued every which way until one is blue in the face, but the reality is that the United States is in rapid decline, is poised to fail, and the Republic has already breathed it’s last. The reason for it, without question, is the removal of the blessing of the Most High from this nation.

        I think that abortion has a lot to do with that. It is, in my mind, the primary reason. We deserve, as a nation, to be cursed for what we do to children. They are, in fact, “created in the image of God”. But we murder them by sucking their brains out with a vacuum cleaner, or by ripping their limbs off while they are still in the womb. Why? I don’t think anyone really knows, it is just “convenient”.

        So, let the Republic and the Noble Experiment rest in peace, it is dead. No need to mourn, it died because it was wicked. Not the most wicked, but then judgment always begins at the House of God, and proceeds to the most righteous, and the least righteous is last to be judged – but most severely. As the Lord said, pray “Thy Kingdom come”.

        I am betting that Jesus Christ, when he reigns on the earth, will not endorse abortions. I am betting that it will be considered capital murder.

        • tess_in_va
  • westbrook348

    It’s truly disappointing how many unborn children are killed in this country. I really wish we could get more women to have ultrasounds before having an abortion. Perhaps then they’d realize the true nature of what they’re doing; they wouldn’t be able to rationalize their behavior, and we’d gain a lot more supporters to the pro-life cause.

    • justsayitlikeitis

      Reason women have abortions is economical. If we want fewer abortions, we must tell them we have something in place to help them care for their babies. Unfortunately, this goes against a core conservative principle of personal responsibility that you are on your own. How can we leave them to fend for themselves, yet say ‘it’ll be moral to have that baby, even though you’ll live in squalor and barely feed your child’? It’s a dichotomy.

  • 1stRichard

    Why not push their buttons and we go on the attack?

    Fact, nox emissions for cars stopped us from using those turbo diesels so widely used in Europe for decades that get sixty to ninety miles per gallon. Instead, we are forced by fines and imprisonment to use twice the amount of fuel that even pollutes more to produce and is more costly to manufacture. Can anyone please explain how using twice the amount of fuel for huge profits for the oil companies is any good? Why are those on the left supporting terrorist oil profits?

    Look at what happed under past experiments crony capitalism, for example look at China?s ?Great Leap Forward? and the results was over thirty million dead from agonizing starvation from this one experiment. We shouldn?t even be looking in this direction, this type of collectivist government experiments yet all the democrats have done is take more steps down this slippery slope, and sadly some left leaning republicans.

    This is actually simple, take all the left?s Hot Button Issues and speak the truth, get in there and fight.

    • snopercod

      Just come out and tell your liberal friends, “I didn’t realize you were a racist. Did you know that 2/3 of the babies who are aborted are black? Isn’t that the real reason you support abortion?”

      • utahrepublican

        that the percentage is that high, but I like the comment. Clearly, if Republicans supported abortion they would be called racist.

  • godrick

    Is the so-called fertility industry. It PROFITS from intentionally creating a surplus of embryos that it knows will be frozen and eventually destroyed, i.e., killed.

    Where is the outrage? Anyone know a couple who have gone through fertility treatment? Ask them – were you given the choice to have only one ovum fertilized, or did you make the more expeditious and economical choice to have ten or more fertilized? Did you think about what would happen to the zygotes that weren’t implanted?

    Hypocrites, all.

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