Abortion is the greatest killer known to man. No one of course knows how many babies have died at the hands of their own parents throughout history. And even since the dreadful day 41 years ago in America when Roe v Wade set off a baby-killing tsunami around the world (January 23), the numbers are not fully clear.
But we have some ideas of the rough numbers, both in the US and globally. And the numbers are mind-numbing. We just can’t get a handle on the size, enormity and scope of these figures. What Hitler could not do, what major world wars could not do, we are doing all the time in the name of a woman’s right to choose.
The numbers just from America are utterly appalling. According to Randy O’Bannon of LifeNews there have been “56,662,169 abortions in America since Roe vs. Wade in 1973″. As they state in an email: “Each abortion is more than just a number — it’s a tiny baby whose life was snuffed out and a mother injured in the process. Each abortion is a father who will never experience the joy of holding his baby, watching his son play on the high school football team or watching his daughter graduate from college.
“If you run the math on those terrible figures, the numbers are absolutely chilling:
1.382 million abortions every year
115,167 abortions every month
26,577 abortions every week
3,786 abortions every day
157 abortions every hour
2.6 abortions every minute”
The article does mention the good news however that abortion numbers are declining in the US: “The long term trend is fewer abortions, and the number is down significantly from 1990 when the country saw 1.6 million abortions a year. As one measure of the impact your work has had, if the number of abortions had remained at 1.6 million, more than seven MILLION more babies would have died.
“The publication of data from the CDC last November is good reason to believe there is a new major downward trend. The drop of 3.1% for 2010 was not as large as the 4.6% drop for 2009, but it is still considerable and the arrows are pointing in the same direction.”
O’Bannon concludes his piece with these words: “But these numbers also show us that our efforts have not been in vain. As noted above, if our nation had continued at the rate of 1.6 million abortions a year we saw in 1990, our cumulative total would have been approaching 64 million by now.
“That would translate into approximately 7 million more babies alive today than would have otherwise been the case. That is the equivalent to the number of abortions performed over a span of six to seven years–living human beings alive today because of you!
“Of course the Movement has a long way to go to return full legal protection to unborn children. But never underestimate the importance of what you, grassroots pro-life America, are doing. What you do makes a real difference.”
There are other groups seeking to put some figures on the slaughter of the innocents. For example, there is a US abortion clock which is constantly being updated as to the numbers. Since I have had their page open, some 3,000 abortions have occurred worldwide.
The numbers keep changing, so even as I cite some of their figures, they are already out of date. But here are some of them:
-1,282,138, 409 abortions globally since 1980
-2,163, 390 abortions globally this year so far
-56,213 abortions globally today so far
In the US it gives these chilling figures:
-64,154 abortions this year
-622 of these were due to rape or incest
The site offers an explanation as to how it has obtained these numbers, and offers other helpful information, including this:
“Why is there a ‘After 16 weeks gestation’ abortion counter? There is a lot of argument about ‘When does life begin?’ It would seem to be pretty hard for anyone to argue that a baby at 16 weeks’ gestation ‘is just a blob of tissue’ based on what the scientific community knows today about the development of a baby at 16 weeks:
“-The body is fully formed, the fingers and toes have fingerprints & nails.
-Is about 5 inches long and weighs about 3 ounces.
-The baby is moving about: may grasp for the umbilical cord, suck its thumb, and make facial expressions
-The heart & circulatory system and the urinary tract are fully functioning, and the blood is pumping through these tiny veins
-The baby is inhaling and exhaling the amniotic fluid through the lungs.
The eyes are in the proper position, and the baby can see straight ahead & blink his/her eyelids.
-The genitals have formed. In the case of a girl, the uterus has already developed and the ovaries are in the proper place.”
These figures – as overwhelming as they are – need to be kept at the forefront of our minds. But these are of course not just numbers. They are little babies – boys and girls – whose lives have been unduly snatched away from them. We need to put a human face – billions of them – to these figures.
To conclude, let me share “The Wholly Innocent” by Australian poet Bruce Dawe:
I never walked abroad in air
I never saw the sky
Nor knew the sovereign touch of care
Nor looked into an eye
I never chose, nor gave consent
Nor voted on my fate
Unseen, I came, unseen I went
Too early and too late
This was my life-line trust
As absolute as blood
Now down in the bucket thrust
Anonymous as mud
Oh you within whose God-like power
Lies to so decide
Remember me when, some late hour
Talks turn to genocide
For I was part of that doomed race
Whose death-cell was the womb
But who can clear a bloody space
And call it living room
I never had a name or cried
That central cry “I am”
But in a world-wide shambles died
Defenceless as a lamb
Remember me next time you
Rejoice at sun or star
I would have loved to see them too
I never got that far
http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/12/56662169-abortions-in-america-since-roe-vs-wade-in-1973/
http://www.numberofabortions.com/
[1038 words]