Tag Archives: ethic_of_life

Abortion is indeed on the decline

A statistic I’ve heard thrown around, and I’ve hesitated to mention, regarding abortion was that the number of abortions had risen under Republican presidents and gone down under Democratic presidents.

I finally remembered it and thought to look it up, and found the oh so reliable FactCheck.org had put together a clear answer for me:

A number of politicians and organizations have been circulating an interesting and surprising idea: that abortions have gone up under George W. Bush’s watch.  The claim is repeated by supporters of abortion rights as evidence that Bush’s anti-abortion policies have backfired, or at least been ineffective. 

But the claim is untrue. In fact, according to the respected Alan Guttmacher Institute, a 20-year decline in abortion rates continued after Bush took office, as shown in this graph

    

Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute, “Trends in Abortion in the United States

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Statistical break down of Abortions by age and race (sort of) (1995)

In a recent discussion about abortion, the issue came up of knowing what groups of women are having abortions and the role that plays in how we talk about it and how we address it.

I found this chart that breaks down Abortions by age and race (when I said sort of, it’s because it’s split into white and “black/other”–But there is also a chart dividing Hispanic and non-Hispanic).

There is also this long article that does a good job articulating statistics concerning Teenagers and abortion and pregnancy, but it’s also ten years old.

The best and most recent statistics I could find are in this document (Download the pdf file).

Without getting too much into to the discussion of abortion, whether it’s right or wrong and all of that, I just felt it was valuable to put these links up so that we can read and learn and attempt to understand to a small degree the people about whom we discuss when we discuss abortion.
Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on, I believe it is hugely important for us to be addressing the needs of mothers in our society.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

If there is anything I take from that, it is a need to toss aside our abortion debates and come along side the mothers and children in our society and provide and meet their needs.

What are you doing to look after the orphans? What can I be doing?