Pro Life: Abortion Rates Fall to Their Lowest Level Since Roe vs Wade as More Babies Saved From Abortion
The abortion rate in the U.S. has fallen to its lowest level since before Roe v. Wade, according to a new Centers for Disease Control report.
In comparison to 2012, the new data indicates that about 34,500 fewer babies lost their lives to abortion in 2013.
The Associated Press reports the CDC has not recorded a lower abortion rate since 1971, two years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade and its companion case Doe v. Bolton, which allowed for legalized abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy. In 1971, several states had legalized abortion; but it was not legal throughout the U.S.
Abortion rates have been dropping steadily in the past several years as pro-lifers worked to pass a historic number of pro-life laws in states across the country. Pregnancy resource centers and sidewalk counselors also have been playing an integral role, offering pregnant and parenting families resources and information to empower them to choose life for their unborn babies.
Advances in modern technology and medicine also have been playing a part by providing a clear picture of an unborn baby’s life and development in the womb, and making it difficult to deny the biology that life begins at conception.
At their high decades ago, approximately 1 in 3 pregnancies ended in an abortion — resulting in brochures, banners and billboards proclaiming that fact and greying out every third baby displayed in pictures of newborn children. But thanks to the dedicated work of millions of pro-lifers, more babies’ lives are being saved from abortion and more abortion facilities are closing their doors each year.
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Here’s more from the CDC report, as summarized by the AP:
—Women in their 20s accounted for more than 58 percent of abortions and had the highest abortion rates. Young women and girls aged 19 and under accounted for 11.7 percent of abortions.The report indicates that four women died in abortion-related deaths in 2012, the latest year the CDC has numbers for. All were related to legal abortions and none to illegal abortions, according to the CDC.
—Two-thirds of abortions were performed within the first eight weeks of gestation, and nearly 92 percent by 13 weeks. Only 1.3 percent were performed after 20 weeks — a point at which many anti-abortion activists want a federal abortion ban to be imposed. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to support such a ban if legislation reaches his desk.
—State abortion rates varied widely, from 3.6 per 1,000 women age 15-44 in Mississippi to 24.3 in New York. Mississippi is among a handful of states with only one functioning abortion clinic.
—Medical abortions — generally using the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol — accounted for about 22 percent of abortions; surgical procedures accounted for nearly all the others.
—About 15 percent of women who obtained an abortion were married. About 60 percent had previously given birth to at least one child.
There were approximately 5,770 late-term abortions at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy in 2013, according to the CDC. Another approximate 8,150 abortions took place between 18 weeks and 20 weeks, the CDC reports.
Because California, Maryland and New Hampshire do not report their abortion numbers to the CDC, news outlets estimate the real abortion total was about 900,000 nation-wide in 2013.
Data from the National Center for Health Statistics released earlier this year indicated similar abortion trends. The data found that both teen birth and teen abortion rates are declining to historic lows across the U.S.
Pro-Abortion Group’s Thanksgiving Message: We’re Thankful for More Abortions
Leave it to the abortion activists at the National Organization for Women to send out a Thanksgiving message saying they are thankful for more abortions.
In an email message sent to its supporters this morning,
the National Organization for Women talked about the things that is
thankful for this year. One of those is the Supreme Court decision
regarding a pro-life law in Texas that was credited with saving
thousands of babies from abortions. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the pro-life law,
paving the way for more abortions in the state of Texas done by
abortion practitioners who don’t have to put the health of women having
abortions ahead of their profit-making abortion agenda.
Of course the abortion Advocates of the National
Organization for Women worded the decision differently what’s the
typical language of “Reproductive Rights.”
“From all of us here at the National Organization for
Women, we wish you and your loved ones a very happy Thanksgiving,” the
NOW greeting says. “This year won an historic Supreme Court victory for
reproductive rights, and sent feminists to Congress. And next year, we
will fight harder than ever before to amplify women’s voices and make
sure we’re heard.”
“We are so thankful for our community of dedicated
activists (like you, Supporter)–who stand with NOW through every setback
and every victory. Your work at the grassroots level makes progress
possible. Thanks again for all you do,” it continues.
NOW is the same organization whose president, Terry O’Neill, published a article saying abortion “saves lives.”
How does O’Neill get to the conclusion promised in the title, that
“abortion care” saves lives? Easy! She ignores 50% of the people
involved in every abortion.The first place she looks for saved lives from abortion is high infant mortality rates. They’d be so much lower if more of those pesky underprivileged women would just get more abortions. That’s right, her solution to high infant mortality rates is to kill the babies before they get the chance to die!
Abortionist Pledges to Abort More Babies After Donald Trump Elected President
It should come as little surprise that Donald Trump’s unexpected victory is causing panic in the abortion industry.
The Republican president-elect vowed to nominate “pro-life” justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and to sign a bill to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood as long as it continues to do abortions. With Republican majorities also elected to the U.S. House and Senate, pro-lifers are hopeful that federal lawmakers will enact new protections for unborn babies in the near future.But abortion activists already are fighting back, declaring that they will do everything they can to keep abortion on demand legal and easily accessible.
Diana Friedman, a California abortion practitioner who writes under a pseudonym, recently wrote a column for the pro-abortion site Rewire that presented a picture of the abortion industry’s reaction to the election.
Early on the morning after the election, Friedman said she struggled with what to say when her young daughter noticed her crying. Later, Freidman said she sobbed as she drove to work, listening to Hillary Clinton’s concession speech. When she arrived at her abortion facility, she said she noticed that other staff also had pink, puffy eyes from crying, and “there was a communal despondence in the air.”
A couple patients asked her about the election that day, and one patient said she didn’t like either candidate or see much of a difference between them – a statement that Friedman did not like at all.
“I shuddered with the realization that many women and men of this country do not understand the extent to which reproductive freedom will likely be under attack in the new administration,” she wrote.
Later, she continued:
All day, in between patients, I glanced at social media and opinion pieces that made two distinct points about the path forward. The first spoke of coming together, of healing our nation from this vociferous election that has divided us so dramatically, of finding compromise with our fellow Americans.When abortion activists talk about “women’s basic rights” what they really mean is the ability to kill an unborn baby for any reason, at any stage of pregnancy. Their chosen candidate, Democrat Hillary Clinton, supported late-term abortions, including partial-birth abortions, and wanted to force taxpayers to fund them. Clinton’s extreme pro-abortion policies appealed to only a small minority of Americans. Polls consistently show that most Americans oppose late-term and taxpayer-funded abortions.
This message does not resonate with me. I am confident in this moment that I share no ideological common ground with Donald Trump and those of his supporters who wish to severely restrict reproductive rights in a presidency ruled by misogyny.
The other type of message, the one that began to pull me out of my depressive funk, was that of resilience. I received email messages from friends, colleagues, and all the reproductive health organizations that I support. In just two short months, it seems safe to say our work and values will be under attack by Republican-controlled executive and legislative branches of government. We will need to organize now to fight like hell for the next four years to protect women’s basic rights.
America already has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the world, being one of only seven nations, including North Korea and China, that allow elective abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Every year, about 1 million unborn babies lose their lives to abortion in the U.S. But many pro-lifers believe a Clinton administration would have pushed abortion to an even greater extreme, opening the doors for more unborn babies to be killed.
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, Americans rejected this pro-abortion extremism. And hopefully, the in-coming Trump administration and Congressional leaders will respond by passing more protections against abortion, which a strong majority of Americans support, and, ultimately, full protections of unborn babies’ right to life.
Teenager Bravely Rejected Abortion After Rape, She Has No Regrets 7 Years Later
While in high school, Lauran Bunting fell for an older boy who said he respected her decision to wait to have sex. Her parents weren’t happy about her dating him, but she went against their wishes. Then one day, she found herself in a frightening situation with the boyfriend she trusted.
“We were playing basketball. We went in the garage for a quick drink, and that’s when he decided that he didn’t care,” she explained. “He wanted to have sex, and I begged and pleaded with him, but he forced me into this closet and forced me to have sex with him.”Bunting soon she discovered she was pregnant. She told her parents about the pregnancy, but it took her a while to confide in them about the rape. When she finally did, her parents showed her compassion and love. Though her father wanted her to abort her baby before he learned about the rape, Bunting refused. He and his granddaughter became the best of friends after her birth.
Bunting gave birth to her daughter Isabella less than two weeks after her high school graduation, and the two have become joined at the hip. They are outspoken against abortion, even participating in a pro-life billboard campaign. Isabella turned seven this year, and the duo was asked to speak at her school in January at the Sanctity of Life Celebration.
Isabella and Lauran. Photo courtesy of Lauran Bunting.
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Choosing life was a quick decision for Bunting. She considered adoption initially, but changed her mind when, while leaving the Miami Valley Women’s Center, she was handed a carnation with the verse from Jeremiah attached:
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11It was at that moment that Bunting felt the Lord speak to her, calling her to raise Isabella on her own. Making the decision not to abort her daughter and to raise her at such a young age made Bunting stronger than ever.
“I think any time you put another person’s life before your own, you feel empowered,” she explained. “Though motherhood is a scary journey at times, the Lord has given me the strength to get through the hardest of times and continues to be with me through the good times. No one can explain just how much joy you will feel when you see your child walking in the way of the Lord.”
After years of being able to spend all day with her daughter while working as a nanny, Bunting recently took on a new job. The family of two is constantly on the go. Isabella is an active girl who loves music, art, and gymnastics. While Isabella says math is her favorite subject, her mother thinks that if talking were a class, that would likely be her little chatterbox’s subject of choice.
Bunting knew that it would be difficult to come forward with her story of rape and choosing life for her daughter. But she knows there are women out there who need to hear her story. They need hope, and Bunting wants to give them some. There is so much pressure for rape victims to abort their babies that they can feel as if they have no choice but to abort. Even people who consider themselves pro-life will often list babies conceived in rape as an exception to the pro-life stand.
Bunting wants to change that.
“It’s obviously heartbreaking to ever hear someone give an excuse to murder an innocent baby,” she said. “But as the mom to a child most people would give that excuse to, it makes me work harder to be their voice. My heart hurts for the woman who was raped. I feel her pain. I understand her tears and her fears. And I pray that she would see that her baby that is inside of her is no accident. They aren’t a mistake. That trying to erase that memory by killing their baby isn’t the answer to what they’ve been through, but unfortunately, is only going to add more pain. And maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even months from now. But at some point, they are going to feel that pain and realize that taking their baby’s life wasn’t the answer. That’s why I got out on a limb and put our story out there, praying that even one woman would read our story and see the beautiful miracle that is growing inside of her; that she would choose life for her child.”
Bunting also wants women who have chosen abortion to know that they are still loved; that God’s grace extends to them if they are willing to accept it.
Bunting will continue to speak out against abortion whenever and wherever she can. Isabella knows she has a father somewhere out there, but she also knows that she has a Father in God, and she knows that God is the creator of life.
“Isabella knows that we are called by God to defend the life of the unborn. She is not afraid to speak out about abortion,” said Bunting. “She has heard the word ‘rape’ used when I speak, but doesn’t actually know what it means. I feel as though she is still too young to know exactly what that is. I make sure to include her and have her be just as involved in pro-life works as I am. I love being able to do ministry with my girl.”
Isabella shows us that all life has value and that being conceived in rape doesn’t make a person’s life less valuable. Life begins in the womb, and everyone has the right to live her own life, regardless of the circumstances surrounding her creation.