We are winning the war against abortion in America on all measurable fronts
You may (or may not!) have noticed I’ve been out-of-pocket a few days. I was in Dublin, Ireland, where I was asked to speak at the National Convention for Life 2014 on April 12.
The daylong event was more than sold out. Many came who hadn’t registered, and although there were dozens of chairs added, some of the 600 800 attendees still had to stand.
The life issue is huge in Ireland, which was abortion free until the tragic death in 2012 of Savita Halappanavar and her 17-wk-old baby, which abortion zealots exploited and lied about to push through a law legalizing abortion for medical emergencies and suicidal ideation last year.
In that light, NCFL organizers asked me to encourage our Irish counterparts by describing how we are winning the war against abortion in America. You can view my speech here, but I thought I’d post the statistics I showed – many compiled by abortion proponents – demonstrating that we are indeed prevailing in just about every measurable way. Click all slides to enlarge.
1) The kitchen sink
First, the January 2013 Time magazine cover, certainly not considered a pro-life mouthpiece, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade…
2) Surge in pro-life state laws passed
As Guttmacher indicates, there has been a huge spike in the passage of state pro-life laws since 2010, when Republicans took control of a majority of state legislatures.
2011: Highest number passed in a single year since Roe: 92
2012: Third highest ever: 43
2013: Second highest ever: 70
3) Another view of the “hostile” change in the abortion landscape over the past decade, via Guttmacher…
4) Number of surgical and medical abortions down
Bear in mind that the population of the U.S. grew from 200 million in 1970 to 300 million in 2011, meaning more women are having fewer abortions.
5) Rate of surgical and medical abortions down
6) Number of clinics down
7) Polls swinging toward life
Finally, the America public is turning against abortion. In 2009, for the first time, a majority of Americans (51%) said they were pro-life. Since then, six of nine Gallup polls have been won by our side. In 2102, the lowest number of Americans ever (41%) said they were pro-choice.
So, in terms of laws passed, the declining number and rate of abortions, the plummeting number of abortion clinics, and public opinion, the pro-life side is winning.
But this is no excuse to let up. It is a call to press harder.
Let’s be clear.
“Number of abortions down” is misleading. It’s preferable to say surgical and medical abortions are down. Abortions via abortifacient contraceptive drugs and pills are not included. That makes the phrase ‘abortion is down’ meaningless.
If I said pro-lifers are anti-stem cell research, you would correct me and clarify the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells.
Science is on the pro-life side. Let’s use it responsibly.
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Good point. Will change. Thanks.
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So very proud of you Jill!! Awesome!!
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.
? Mahatma Gandhi
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Getting flak from the other side is a sign you are over your target.
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Doesn’t feel like it here in Colorado. Pray for us.
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This post should light a fire of encouragement and determination under all of us.
I was just doing a little spring cleaning and came across old newsletters from the Southeast Pennsylvania Pro-Life Coalition in 1982 and 1983. The two big topics were the Baby Doe case and the March of Dimes recommending amniocentisis in the second trimesterr. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop called it a “search and destroy” procedure.
We have the same battles today, but I really do feel that the tide is turning.
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This decrease in abortion is on the scale that there should be a drop in breast cancer cases, if abortion increases the breast cancer risk.
This decrease would be seen for women who don’t have a full-term pregnancy in the couple or few years after the abortion, and the cases should be mostly ER+.
The only thing needed to detect if such a decrease is happening is a data set or survey with a good-enough abortion measurement.
Contrary trends include: increasing average body mass index (body fat is associated with breast cancer risk); and surveillance bias (the recent 20 years has seen a major rise in breast cancer screening). Measures of these phenomena should be pretty strong for the recent 20 years.
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I think that a rough comparison could be made between the ‘advances’ the anti-choice movement speak of and the rise and coming fall of groups such as the tea party.
There are also a few flies in your ointment. Less clinics (for now) but they are larger. TRAP laws will also be wound back.
Chemical abortions are very difficult to gain accurate data on and will become more common and ‘casual’ in nature as drugs are improved. There will come a time when no one will have any idea how many occur.
You may make the accessing of abortion more difficult for a period of time but the demand will still be there. Always has been, always will be. Women will insist on controlling their own destiny.
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Lol.
Nice headshot of you staring into the Irish audience.
Should be on the cover of a major mag.
Now that I’m thinking about it, who took that headshot of you?
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Somehow, my definition of “winning” is much different than Jill’s definition of “winning”.
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To LastDemocrat: Alas, the major cause of breast cancer is the increased and epidemic use of hormonal contraception — especially among younger and younger women over the time.
I suppose that a good researcher could track post-abortive women and carve out the effect of abortion from contraception and other environmental factors, but patient confidentiality does not let us have access to that data. At this point, the theory of abortion/breast-cancer link remains difficult to test.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of other known adverse affects to abortion — mostly related to depression. Drug and alcohol abuse, attempted suicide, post-traumatic stress, difficulty in relationships with loved ones and children, etc. Also impaired fertility and premature births. Plus the acute risks of infection, severe bleeding, and death.
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The only credible sources I have seen on any link between depression, drug and alcohol abuse, attempted suicide, post-traumatic stress and difficulty in relationships identify no more than correlation, not causation. Do you have a new, credible source to back your claim Del?
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Poor Reality. More casual death is a good thing, in his twisted world. This, people, is the proabortion movement imploding, not with a bang, but a whimper.
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What is ‘casual death’? How do you know I might consider any such thing ‘a good thing’?
Pro-choice or no pro-choice movement, women will demand the right to reproductive freedom, legal or not. Always have, always will.
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All I can say is when you and Kelli are not here, it shows.
Back to Ireland, great presentation and great hope for the future in continuing to turn the tide towards pro-life.
God was glorified – Amen!
LL <3
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@ Reality: You’re right. No matter how many laws we pass, some people will still find ways to abort, just as some people will find ways to rape or murder even though those are illegal. We must still make finding those ways as hard as possible.
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Carder, it’s the headshot I send to groups who ask for one.
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Ex, way to fly those pro-choice colors!
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“The only credible sources I have seen on any link between depression, drug and alcohol abuse, attempted suicide, post-traumatic stress and difficulty in relationships identify no more than correlation, not causation.”
–The same defense the tobacco companies used. It is true these studies cannot show causation. To show causation, you would have to control all other competing explanations. Here is how you would do it:
You would take a cohort of generally psychologically healthy young women before they enter the abortion age range. You randomize these women to either have an abortion or not in some span of time. You ensure that those in the no-abortion group do not go have some clandestine abortion in the meanwhile.
After some time has passed – maybe a couple of years – you go rate the mental health and psychiatric problems in each of the two groups.
If the abortion group has more mental difficulty, then you have your causal information.
The tobacco sellers could claim for decades that it was not “proven” that smoking caused lung cancer: no one ever randomized kids before smoking-age to be smokers and non-smokers, then followed up across the life span to see who developed lung cancer.
It is just ridiculous, and, again for Reality, un-scientific, to defend the cult-mantra that abortion has no psychological aftermath.
Most of us here know that is ridiculous from first-hand and second-hand experience. There are surveys and other studies showing worse mental health outcomes for those having abortions. For the various types of data, each has a weakness that allows the cult to sustain this no-mental-impact mantra. This “there is no causal evidence” argument shows ignorance of science.
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“I think that a rough comparison could be made between the ‘advances’ the anti-choice movement speak of and the rise and coming fall of groups such as the tea party.”
I think that a rough comparison can be made between the advances of the pro-life movement and the rise and fall of the Marxist-inspired sexual revolution.
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I think that a rough comparison could be made between the ‘advances’ the anti-choice movement speak of and the rise and coming fall of groups such as the tea party.
That could be so. I must admit, it does concern me that the pro-life movement is tied so tightly to a political party that seems to be on its last legs. All of our eggs are in one basket, though there’s not really much that can be done about that now. On the other hand, the end of the George W. Bush era and the Republican majorities of the ‘90s didn’t exactly lead to a huge rollback of pro-life legislative efforts.
There are also a few flies in your ointment. Less [sic] clinics (for now) but they are larger. TRAP laws will also be wound back.
Makes a difference to the babies that will be saved, even in the short term. And again, “TRAP laws” were not wound back after they were introduced in the 1990s.
Chemical abortions are very difficult to gain accurate data on and will become more common and ‘casual’ in nature as drugs are improved. There will come a time when no one will have any idea how many occur. You may make the accessing of abortion more difficult for a period of time but the demand will still be there. Always has been, always will be. Women will insist on controlling their own destiny.
Well, that robo-Skype abortion thing was sort of a bust. I’m not sure what else they have in store.
Somehow, my definition of “winning” is much different than Jill’s definition of “winning”.
It could be because Jill is pro-life and rational.
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9ek –
The pro-choice side has won if these numbers are something to celebrate.
If there was a theme of the last 5 years or so, it is the solidification that Americans are fine with 95%+ of current abortions – the laws have supported that, the polls of gallup have supported that, and politicians talking points have supported that.
So I sound like a pro-choicer – I don’t really care – I don’t really see much to celebrate.
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There wasn’t a whole lot of pro-life legislative efforts to be rolled back from that era Navi. Nor any significant TRAP laws. Most of the restrictive stuff has been done at state level within states where the politicians either are, or live in fear of, the extremist elements. At least you recognise the real intent of the laws.
Safer, more effective drugs will continue to come to market and the stage will be reached where trying to collect accurate data will be about as effective as collecting data on how many people took something to treat a headache.
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There wasn’t a whole lot of pro-life legislative efforts to be rolled back from that era Navi. Nor any significant TRAP laws.
According to Guttmacher, that’s not true. It picked up in the last few years, but they have been around since the 1990s.
https://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_TRAP.pdf
Most of the restrictive stuff has been done at state level within states where the politicians either are, or live in fear of, the extremist elements.
Well, it polls pretty well for such “extreme” stuff.
At least you recognise the real intent of the laws.
Sure. “Because we can.” and “they save lives” might sound Machiavellian, but we only have to play this game because the Supreme Court declared abortion to be a right (despite having no constitutional basis). Better to play to win than to play badly.
Safer, more effective drugs will continue to come to market and the stage will be reached where trying to collect accurate data will be about as effective as collecting data on how many people took something to treat a headache.
I’ll believe it when I see it. “We’re going to come out with new, better abortion pills someday” isn’t very convincing compared to the points in this article.
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it polls pretty well for “extreme” stuff – does it? How is the polling done? If more people were aware of the true intent behind the legislation then things might be different.
Sure. “Because we can.” and “they save lives” might sound Machiavellian – good for you :-)
I’ll believe it when I see it. – you think the data is accurate now? How many ways can people get their hands on these pills?
“We’re going to come out with new, better abortion pills someday” isn’t very convincing compared to the points in this article. – you have misquoted me. I don’t find the article very convincing at all.
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does it? How is the polling done? If more people were aware of the true intent behind the legislation then things might be different.
Clinic regulation hasn’t been widely polled, but other legislation (the 20-week ban, parental consent, mandatory ultrasound, waiting periods, etc) isn’t terribly unpopular.
you think the data is accurate now? How many ways can people get their hands on these pills?
The data is as good as it can be, and the number of RU-486 abortions reported by Guttmacher is consistent with the number of pills sold by the manufacturer. If you have evidence that thousands of women are secretly obtaining abortion pills, I’ll believe it when I see it.
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I haven’t seen the polling Navi so I don’t know.
The interwebs are a good place for the easy and cost-effective purchase of many goods. Borders are easily crossed. I have no extrapolated data but anecedotal reports and the way drugs of all types are distributed does raise the question. Will we ever really know?
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