During the Presidential Forum, Warren twice said that 40 million babies have been killed since the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade. That number is wrong. It is currently over 50 million. Other than that, his questions were excellent (though he should not have accepted Obama’s non-answer to the question about when a baby gets human rights).
9 Comments
Alex Chediak
Denny,
Interesting. Might you have a reference? I was at the Forum tonight, and wondered about the number too. But I found this on-line:
http://www.abortiontv.com/Misc/AbortionStatistics.htm#United%20States%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0
which seems to confirm Warren’s approximation.
Thanks,
Alex
Don
The abortion numbers are estimates, as abortionists obviously want to have smaller numbers rather than larger numbers. God knows the exact number, but we do not; whatever it is is very sad.
billy w
Alex,
your link references AGI and CDC totals through 2003. I assume Denny is getting his 50,000 total by adding the estimated 2004-2007 (and maybe part of 2008) totals to the confirmed numbers up through 2003. You could also add in the negative margin of error that AGI assumes.
Here is a link that shows how to arrive at a figure that is closer to 50 million. I think the evidence is certainly in favor of a higher number (high 40’s to low 50’s) but since even the official research is dependent on providers giving the data, there is no way to know exactly how many abortions have been performed.
http://www.christianliferesources.com/?/library/view.php&articleid=1042
It does seem odd that Warren would use the 40 million figure which is certainly low unless there have been no abortions since 2003. I would think that he would have researched that number better before hosting an event like this. Overall though it seems like he did a pretty good job.
Matt Svoboda
He probably used the low number so he didn’t get attacked by liberals who would accuse him of inflating the numbers to make the problem look worse than it is. If i was him I would of picked a number I knew everyone would agree with. I think it was a wise move. It kept the focus on the issue, not the number. (Except the blog world, of course!)
Darius
My question is this: is 40 million any better than 50 million as it pertains to the context (America has killed a freakin’ huge number of it’s own babies in 30+ years)?
Brian (Another)
Along those lines (Darius) is the question posed here a while ago. Should we champion elimination or reduction of abortion? And right along those lines is a story from Justin Taylor about the abortion rate falling. To really synopsize a synopsis:
The abortion rate for 2005 was 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44.
In comparison, the rate was 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 1981
21.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 2000,
and 19.7 abortions per 1,000 women in 2004.
To me, it drove home how sad (to me) it is to think of saying we should work to just reduce the number. Even with a massive decrease over the last few decades of the abortion rate (per capita, total) resulted in 400,000 fewer aborted children (compared to the all time high. There’s no analysis as to why, though), but still 1.2 million in ’05. Million. One year. 365 days. Over 2 babies per minute. Per minute. I was hit with the sad reality of it all. I am not saying this as a rant against women who make these choices or the men who blithely (or knowingly/coercively) are involved. I fall squarely on the side of calling this a transcendent moral issue. And the stark reality of 1.2 million per year, 50 million over 30 years is, well, beyond my simple little words.
This issue, I suppose, is one that makes me the “hardest to convince“ since I am “entrenched in the fundamentalism of the far rightâ€. So be it, I guess.
2.283 children per minute. In the peak year it was over 3. And I know that we can make statistics appear many ways, but….sigh….I’m done.
Darius
Brian, here is a very sad graph from Europe. It is the % of births that are not carried full-term.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_Gpzff9r9pHM/Rgp5yLV5CeI/AAAAAAAAABk/V1HdqJJebbc/s1600-h/abortion.JPG
Brian (Another)
Thanks, Darius. I wonder what is the reasoning behind Poland and Portugal (<2%). From what site did that originate (the blogger site doesn’t seem to be it)?
Grisly details. Very sad.
Darius
I don’t remember, I found it a few months ago. I think abortion is illegal in Poland and Portugal, thus the low rates.