63,459,781 Babies Have Been Killed in Abortions Since Roe v. Wade in 1973

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 7, 2022   |   10:40AM   |   Washington, DC

A new factsheet that tallies the number of babies killed in abortions since 1973 presents heartbreaking news for pro-life Americans. The new figures from the National Right to Life Committee show that almost 63.5 million babies have been killed in abortion since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in roe v. Wade in 1973.

Randall O’Bannon, Ph.D., is the director of education and research for the pro-life group, provides further analysis of the chart and the horrifying figures.

Although abortion totals per year have gone down since their highs just after Roe, almost 900,000 babies are killed in abortions every year and those totals have increased slightly in the last two years because of the COVID pandemic and massive uncertainty in the world, according to NRLC’s projections.

“As you see in the accompanying chart, we have made substantial progress in reducing the number of abortions and lowering the abortion rate over the past thirty years. At the same time, though, as long as abortion is legal, each year we will keep adding to the total of lives lost to America’s greatest holocaust,” he said.

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The most accurate abortions figures for the United States come from a pro-abortion group that was formerly a part of Planned Parenthood because those figures come straight from abortion centers that kill babies. The CDC also collects annual abortion figures and their totals are reflected but their annual data is incomplete because California and a couple other states are not included.

“The latest reliable national annual figure we have comes from the Guttmacher Institute which, although pro-abortion, does the most complete data gathering. For the year 2017, Guttmacher estimated the number of abortions performed in the U.S. was 862,320,” O’Bannon noted. “That is the lowest figure Guttmacher has reported since 1973 when the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide. That number is just a bit more than half of what the toll was in 1990 when Guttmacher recorded more than 1.6 million abortions.”

“Numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have not included data from California, New Hampshire and at least one other state since 1998, so its annual abortion totals are always much lower than Guttmacher’s,” he said.

Even the Guttmacher figures are lower than the likely actual abortion count.

“An additional 3% is added to totals from 1973 through 2014, reflecting a 3-5% undercount Guttmacher has estimated for those figures,” he said. “Another 12,000 abortions were added for each year since 2015 to reflect the caseload of “providers” Guttmacher says it may have missed in its 2015-2017 counts.”

O’Bannon says the increase in abortions is also due to increasing reliance on the abortion pill, which makes killing babies cheaper and easier.

“If an increase occurs, it will likely be to the increased promotion and use of chemical abortions which have risen steadily since the FDA’s approval of the abortifacient mifepristone in 2000. So-called “medication abortions” have increased even while surgical abortions have been declining and the number of clinics has been shrinking in the U.S.,” he noted. “Efforts of the abortion industry and its political allies to promote telemedical chemical abortions, where abortionist never sees the woman in person, will surely exacerbate this trend.”

The ultimate figure of 63,459,781 babies killed in abortions is greater than the populations of a couple dozen states and larger than many of the biggest countries in the world.

“This is more that the population our country’s most populous state (California) and a number greater than the combined population of our 23 least populous states,” O’Bannon says.

“To get another take on the enormity of that loss, a nation with a population of 63.5 million would rank about twenty third on the list of the world’s most populous countries. In terms of population, a nation that size would rank ahead of such countries as Italy, Spain, Kenya, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Argentina, Columbia, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Cambodia, South Korea, or Canada,” he added.

The pro-life advocate says pro-life Americans must step up their efforts to end abortion and build on the success of lowing abortion rates in half over time.

“To reiterate, the long term trend in the number of abortions is definitely downward, even in the midst of overall population increases. It is clear that the legislative, educational, political, and outreach strategies of the pro-life movement have been effective,” he concluded. “The numbers make clear both that we have come a long way and that we have a long way left to go.”