Abortion: By the Numbers
Join us today at noon pacific / 3pm eastern as we discuss this challenging topic with Phil Holloway.
Unless you were living under a rock, you may have heard the news. A legal opinion by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico yesterday. It appears SCOTUS is set to overturn Roe vs. Wade and return powers to the states. Let’s dive into the numbers about this sensitive subject.
For 2019, a total of 629,898 abortions were reported to CDC. By comparison, there were 1.4 million abortions in 1990 (see chart at the bottom). The rate of abortions every year has dropped but the data here is muddy and the definitions have changed decade after decade .
The United States is one of very few countries allowing termination of a pregnancy at most any stage (in some states):
Rasmussen Reports conducts polling on this subject. From their 2019 survey they found:
53% of likely voters consider themselves pro-choice
40% identify as pro-life
7% unsure
Those numbers reflect a divided electorate. 50% of these same voters feel that abortion is “morally wrong most of the time.”
62% of Republicans are pro-life with 33% identifying as pro-choice.
For Democrats, that numbers is reversed: 70% are pro-choice and 23% are pro-life
62% of Blacks consider themselves pro-choice - higher than the average of 53%. According to a 2019 CDC report, “Black women had the highest abortion rate (23.8 abortions per 1,000 women) and ratio (386 abortions per 1,000 live births).”
Almost 40% of births in the Black community are aborted.
Even so, the electorate is pretty firm that abortions from 2nd and 3rd trimesters are unacceptable. 66% of likely voters responded that New York’s new abortion law (allowing abortions up to birth) goes too far. Even 43% of pro-choice identifiers believe that it is out of bounds.
The CDC reports that the vast majority of abortion occur under 14 weeks but consider that tens of thousands of abortions have occurred well into the third trimester. As the leaked ruling notes, there are serious moral and ethical issues with abortion considering the science of life in the womb:
The belief that life starts at conception is a religious belief. I think religious beliefs should be left up to individuals, not mandated by the state.
Just a reminder that "morning after" pills are available OTC (in person and through the mail) but oral contraceptives are not.