Many people fail to appreciate the sheer magnitude of bloodshed, suffering, and death that legalized abortion has introduced into the human experience – both in the United States and worldwide. Far more human lives have been violently ended by this scourge than by any other war or genocide in all of history.
Unaware of just how early and rapidly prenatal human development occurs, many Americans believe that the law should not protect the lives of embryonic and fetal human beings in the first 3 months of pregnancy. However, a strong majority of Americans believe that abortion from the fourth month of pregnancy and on is an evil of such immensity that it is appropriate to ban it. But even the numbers of these second- and third-trimester abortions are alarmingly large.
The following facts on abortion are provided by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.
In the United States, approximately 800,000 abortions per year are performed in the first trimester of pregnancy:
In the United States, approximately 100,000 abortions per year are performed in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy:
View photos of babies who have been aborted at various weeks of pregnancy
WORLDWIDE
Number of abortions per year: approximately 56 million
Number of abortions per day: approximately 153,000
Where abortions occur:
27% of all pregnancies in developed countries end in abortion, and 24% of pregnancies in developing countries end in abortion.
UNITED STATES
Number of abortions per year: 926,200 (2014)
Number of abortions per day: approximately 2,538
More than 50% of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. are in their 20’s: women aged 20-24 obtain 34% of all abortions; teenagers obtain 17%; and girls under 15 account for 0.2%.
While white women obtain 39% of all abortions, their abortion rate is well below that of minority women. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely.
46% of all abortions are performed on never-married women; married women account for 14% of all abortions.
Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 43% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 27%; Jewish women account for 1.3%; and women with no religious affiliation obtain 24% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as born-again or Evangelical (2005).
Some 75% of abortion patients in 2014 were poor or low-income. Twenty-six percent of patients had incomes of 100–199% of the federal poverty level, and 49% had incomes of less than 100% of the federal poverty level ($15,730 for a family of two).
1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems with either the mother or the child; and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (that is, the child is unwanted or inconvenient) (2005).
61% of all abortions occur before the 9th week of pregnancy; 18% happen between the 9th & 10th weeks; 9.6% happen between the 11th & 12th weeks; 6.7% happen between the 13th & 15th weeks; 3.5% happen between the 16th & 20th weeks; and 1.1% of all abortions (16,450/yr) happen after the 20th week of pregnancy.
An estimated 35% of all women will have at least 1 abortion by the time they are 45 years old. 47% of all abortions are performed on women who have had at least 1 previous abortion.
In 2014, some 46% of abortion clinics offered very early abortions (at four weeks’ gestation or earlier, before the first missed period), and 99% offered the procedure up to eight weeks from the last menstrual period. Seventy-two percent of clinics offered abortions up to 12 weeks, 25% up to 20 weeks and 10% up to 24 weeks.