The Centers for Disease Control has released new abortion data for 2021 and the news is not good for pro-life Americans who want to protect babies from abortion.
The CDC data indicates that abortions increased by about 5% between 2020 and 2021, meaning more babies lost their lives to abortions. It showed 625,798 abortions occurred in 2021, although a more accurate figure puts the number of abortions around 900,000.
The abortion increase is not a surprise given how 2020 was an incredibly tumultuous year because of COVID and that economic and overall uncertainty likely drove up abortion figures. Moreover, during COVID, many Democrat governors close down legitimate health care such as regular prenatal checkups while letting abortion businesses have special accommodations to remain open to kill babies.
Also, 2021 was the first year that Joe Biden instituted his radical pro-abortion agenda — whether he did everything from promote abortions, fund Planned Parenthood and use taxpayer dollars to fund and promote abortions. Combined, COVID and Biden’s abortion agenda obviously drove up the abortion figures, resulting in more babies losing their lives.
Looking at the CDC data, abortions increased in 34 of the 46 states that reported data to the CDC in both 2020 and 2021. Although the CDC does not get abortion data from every state (including California) the data is clearly incomplete but the year to year comparisons are still instructive because the CDC is analyzing the same states.
The increase in chemical abortions is playing a large role in this abortion increase as more women use the dangerous abortion pill that has killed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of women and injured countless more. The share of all abortions that are chemical abortions increased from 53.4% to 56%, that’s in contrast to 2016 where only 33.1% of all abortions involved the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone.
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“The Biden administration’s FDA continued the COVID-era policy of allowing women to obtain chemical abortion drugs without an in-person medical exam. This made abortion policy even more permissive and likely contributed to the abortion uptick,” said Dr. Michael New, a professor who monitors and investigates abortion figures.
Although abortions increased, they would have gone up more if not for pro-life states.
“The Texas Heartbeat Act took effect in September 1, 2021. The CDC indicates that abortions fell by about 6% in the Lone Star State. Some reports indicated that the lone abortion facility in Missouri ceased doing abortions at certain points in 2021, Missouri had the lowest abortion rate in the country,” New explained. “Furthermore, a study that came out this week analyzing U.S. birth data up to June of 2023 found that post-Dobbs pro-life laws have saved 32,000 lives.”
The good news is that the pro-life community has done a great job of lowering abortions from their peak high years ago.
“Long-term pro-lifers have made a great deal of progress. The CDC indicates that abortions have fallen by more than 18% since 2011. Guttmacher data indicates that the U.S. abortion rate has fallen by more than 50% since its 1980 peak,” New said. “The recent abortion increase is certainly concerning However, pro-lifers have still made a great deal of long term progress and have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future.”
Family Research Council’s Director of the Center for Human Dignity, Mary Szoch, also reacted to the news and told LifeNews that the abortion increase should remind pro-life Americans that the Dobbs decision was good news that came at a great time.
“From 2020-2021, the number of abortions increased by five percent. This means that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision giving elected officials the power to protect unborn children from abortion came at the time when unborn children’s lives were most at risk,” she said. “The time to protect the unborn is now!”
Szoch said women need to better understand the problems associated with the abortion pill.
“Additionally, this data shows that 56 percent of abortions occurred using the dangerous chemical abortion drug, mifepristone. While every abortion is tragic because it ends the life of an unborn child, abortions using the abortion drug, mifepristone, are especially horrific because of the great risk they pose to the mother’s health, and sometimes her life, as well,” she said.
She concluded: “The CDC data shows that six women and 625,978 unborn babies lost their lives from legal and induced abortion. This number is undoubtedly an underreporting. It is devastating, as each of these women and each of these babies have incalculable dignity and worth. Let us pray for the day when no unborn child and no mother is targeted by the abortion industry.”
