Abortion in 2014: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

On January 17 the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute released their most recent report on abortion in America.

While the Centers for Disease Control report includes abortion figures from state health departments and other official bodies, they miss data from several states, including California. The Guttmacher Institute includes numbers from all 50 states and directly polls abortion clinics. We know in the past in Michigan that some abortion clinics won't report data to the state.

The Guttmacher Institute may be closely affiliated with Planned Parenthood, but their report is the best estimate we have for abortion statistics; their trends also closely mirror those of the CDC report.

The Good:

There were 926,200 abortions performed in the U.S. in 2014. Abortions are now under one million a year, and at the lowest amount since 1974. The abortion rate, which is the number of abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, is at the lowest level since 1973. At 14.6 per 1,000 women, that means abortion is less common today than at any point of legalized abortion in America. This is good news that your efforts are paying off in lives saved!

The Bad:

There were 926,200 abortions performed in the U.S. in 2014. Abortion dwarfs cancer and heart disease as causes of death, if the authorities counted it that way. More than 57 million unborn children have had their lives taken from them unjustly in the last 44 years. That's an amount of lives beyond comprehension.

The Ugly:

Many supporters of the nation's leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, are trying to claim that we should thank Planned Parenthood and Obamacare for this, specifically birth control and sex education. What a convenient claim given the national discussion about defunding Planned Parenthood and repealing Obamcare! These claims are wrong for several important reasons:

1. Planned Parenthood has been cutting birth control services and clients in the last 10 years, while expanding abortions.
2. The long-term decline in abortion began in 1990, 20 years before Obamacare came along. 
3. The most recent Guttmacher numbers acknowledge that a majority of women who have abortions were using birth control.
4. The Guttmacher report acknowledges the affect of prolife legislation in the last few years.

Through prolife people roll their eyes when the number one abortion provider brags about lowering abortions, it proves one of our critical points: abortion is unpopular. For many abortion supporters it is at best a necessary evil, not a social good as abortion leaders have been trying to say lately. Planned Parenthood could end a third of U.S. abortions overnight if that's what they really wanted, but at least they are still forced to acknowledge that abortion is ugly.