When is a decrease in abortions not good news? Apparently, when you are an advocate for the abortion industry.
A recent blog post objects to pro-lifers’ contention that a decline in abortions in Pennsylvania is “good news for women” (“Pennsylvania Abortion Statistics: The Distorted View from the Anti-Choice Lobby,” January 14).
It wasn’t so long ago in our nation’s history that a self-described “pro-choice” President, Bill Clinton, said that “abortion should not only be safe and legal, it should be rare.” (Whether he was being the least bit sincere is another issue.)
However the fact that more than 34,000 abortions still occur in Pennsylvania in a given year shows that, under Roe v. Wade, abortion is not rare. Still, the nearly 5 percent decrease in abortions in the Keystone State signals a positive development, right?
Not in the pro-abortion blogosphere.
The blog post in question states that “criminalizing abortion doesn’t even reduce its incidence.” But what happens when you legalize abortion? An explosion in the number of abortions.
The number of abortions in the U.S. rose dramatically following 1973’s Roe and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton. This one-two legal punch legalized abortion for any reason during all nine months of pregnancy.
Back in 2011, PolitiFact confirmed that Texas Governor Rick Perry was speaking truth when he said there had been 50 million abortions since Roe. (The number is now estimated at more than 56 million. See “Abortions top 56 million since Roe v. Wade”)
While it is true that abortion totals have declined, protective laws with provisions such as parental consent and informed consent have been credited with helping to stop the hemorrhage. As political scientist Michael New told a newspaper in 2011, “My research found that abortion rates have declined in nearly every state, but we see the biggest declines in states like Mississippi, which has enacted many pro-life laws, and Pennsylvania, which passed a very strong-informed consent law known as the Abortion Control Act.” (See www.ncregister.com/daily-news/state-abortion-laws-save-lives .)
The pro-abortion RhealityCheck.org blog further states that “it’s not all that clear” the 4.8 percent decrease in abortions in Pennsylvania in 2012 is “statistically significant in context.” Really?
Each month, news organizations report on the jobless rate. Any decline—no matter how minuscule the percentage—is considered a big deal. Why wouldn’t the same hold true for abortion totals? Isn’t a rise or fall in the number of abortions at least as important as the unemployment rate?
Also, after the landmark Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act went into effect in 1994—the law that led to the seminal Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey—abortion totals nosedived. Yes, abortion figures should be viewed in context, but the relevant context is that protective laws trigger the downward trend.
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One of the most puzzling contentions of pro-abortion bloggers is that pro-life laws are responsible for increasing poverty. But if abortion is the “solution” to women’s poverty, why didn’t Roe resolve the nation’s poverty problem?
Such an analysis also fails to take into account a stark economic reality: the more than 56 million lives who have been lost to abortion, means lost wage earners, lost taxpayers, lost investors, lost contributions to Social Security. In other words, generations—and and all they generate–lost.
Yes, a decrease in abortions is unequivocally good news for women and families. But the best news would be an America in which all people, in all states, are protected—whether they happen to live inside or outside the womb—and all women are free from the scourge of state-sanctioned abortion.
LifeNews.com Note: Maria Vitale is an opinion columnist for LifeNews.com. She is the Legislative Director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and Vitale has written and reported for various broadcast and print media outlets, including National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and AP Radio.
