The more you dig into “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2011,” written by Rachel K. Jones and Jenna Jerman of the Guttmacher Institute, the more you have to reflect on.
We know the very welcomed headline. As Jones and Jerman summarize, “In 2011, an estimated 1.1 million abortions were performed in the United States” (a drop of a drop of 13% since 2008 and 550,000 fewer abortions than the 1.6 million abortions performed in 1990), and “the abortion rate was 16.9 per 1,000 women aged 15-44, representing a drop of 13% since 2008.”
Never forget that those spared from the slaughter represent flesh-and-blood babies who otherwise would be dead. It’s horrific that there were still l.06 million abortions in 2011 (the last year Guttmacher has data for) but that should not prevent us from celebrating the diminished number.
Something else that occurred as I was writing yesterday and then forgot. We are supposed to just accept as fact the conventional wisdom that “both sides” are happy.
We are happy, but are they really celebrating the drop in dead babies?
Consider the following.
Guttmacher drops some broad hints at the end of their analysis that maybe, just maybe there was an undercount. There are many reasons, starting with (1) Guttmacher having less success at getting “direct information” from abortion “providers”; and (2) the much increased use of chemical abortions.
My strong hunch is that this goes beyond an admission of methodological shortcomings. If there hasn’t been any decline, well that just proves (if there was any doubt) that pro-lifers have had no effect.
There is also conspiracy talk (which pro-abortionists love) about a mad rush to Mexico to get the prostaglandin misoprostol, the second drug in the two-drug RU-486 abortion “technique,” which, while much less “effective” (what a strange word in this context) is considerably cheaper than mifepristone.
Why? Because of the needless, annoying pro-life legislative limitations on how chemical abortions are performed.
Read (if you can) the pro-abortion web sites and the people who make a living hacking away at unborn babies or grinding out papers explaining how (fill in the blank) will increase “access” to abortion. Would you expect them to be leaping for joy?
Whether it’s Guttmacher or Planned Parenthood or pro-abortion academic factories like the University of Southern California-San Francisco’s ’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, all they talk about is unnecessary “restrictions,” the critical importance of increasing access to “underserved” populations, and making worldwide inroads into nations with protective abortion laws. That and endless whining about the number of counties without abortionists, any restriction on the use of public (yours and mine) money, and talk about babies at 20 weeks feeling pain when they are disposed of.
You can take this to the bank. To this motley crew, there are never, ever enough abortions.
This is the last post of the day so let me end with this.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
Celebrating a modest downturn in the slaughter requires that you believe there is a somebody in there, someone whose life is snuffed out when the abortionist cuts them to pieces or poisons them or induces premature delivery and then slits their spinal cords.
If you don’t, then it is awful news that there has been a diminution in the abortion industry’s case load.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in his National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
