As Detroit Declares Bankruptcy, Its Abortion Rate Almost Twice National Average

State   |   Katie McCann   |   Aug 5, 2013   |   4:02PM   |   Detroit, MI

A recurring image in stories about Detroit’s bankruptcy is darkness, loss of light: 40 percent of the city’s streetlights do not work.  It’s a terribly magnificent metaphor for the loss of life the city has seen.

Over the past 60 years, the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent. Is it any wonder that as the individual minds that once illuminated the city left, Detroit’s light eventually dimmed?

But I want to expound upon these images with a far more brutal example of the loss of life (and light) that Detroit has suffered:

In 2012, Detroit claimed an abortion rate of 37.9 (number of abortions per 1,000 females, ages 15-44)—a rate far higher than Michigan’s statewide rate of 11 and the country’s rate of approximately 20.

Alarmingly, Detroit’s rate appears to be in a constant state of flux, dropping from 38.1 to 29 in 2009 and rising back to nearly 38 by 2012.

The staggering nature of Detroit’s abortion rate is mirrored in the city’s infant mortality rate. In 2010, data from the National Center for Health Statistics showed Detroit’s infant mortality rate to be 13.5 deaths per 1,000 live births—the number 1 worst rate in the United States, a ranking it shares with Cleveland, parts of which have an infant mortality rate that exceeds that of some third-world countries.

Even if abortion and infant mortality did not cause Detroit’s collapse, I don’t know how the events cannot be correlated. Living by principles that destroy life is simply and obviously unsustainable. Infant mortality and abortion alike claim the lives of innocent human beings—human beings who, had they lived, perhaps could have saved Detroit.

Regardless of how well a city and its economy appear to be doing, if the city has no life-affirming foundation, it will forever be crippled and destined for failure.

Surely, there are plenty of American cities that bear a lively and thriving appearance while also sustaining a staggering abortion rate. New York City is one example of a city where the fact that 40 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion is glossed over by a glamorous appearance.

Americans would be sorely remiss if we overlook the fact that Detroit is desperately in need of the very thing that abortion deliberately takes: life. Minds. Human power and ingenuity.

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I’ve heard speculation that Detroit is just the first of America’s cities to sink—that there are more to come.

If we continuously fail to address this grave social issue—the depletion of human brainpower by means of abortion—, then we will continue to set America up for her collapse and the extinguishing of all her lights.

LifeNews Note: Katie McCann writes for Ohio Right to Life. This originally appeared at the Ohio Right to Life blog.