Most of us have a personal opinion in the highly charged debate about whether or not abortion should be legal. Whether we call ourselves “pro-choice” or “pro-life,” we have developed our personal opinion on the subject. It’s very personal to us and for many of us, we feel very strongly about our viewpoint. But I wonder how many of us have formulated our opinions based on presumptions that just aren’t factually true.

I consider myself strongly pro-life. Some time ago, I considered myself to be strongly pro-choice. I eventually came to the conclusion that abortion was morally wrong (if it’s wrong to kill a baby one day after birth, why is it okay to do so one day before?), but still assumed that most of the justifications I had heard people used to defend it were right. But after doing some study, I came to learn that almost everything that I had heard and assumed about abortion was wrong. Not just “we agree to disagree” morally wrong, but factually wrong. As in irrefutably and verifiably incorrect. And I’ve found that many other people on both sides of the “pro-choice”/”pro-life” fault line have been misinformed as well. That’s why I feel the need to debunk the things that just aren’t true.

Let’s examine the following commonly believed statements. Please be patient. There’s a lot of bunk out there.

• “Abortion is rare”
• “Abortion is only used as an extreme last resort”
• “Adoption is not always an option”
• “Roe v. Wade has saved many lives”
• “A lot of abortions are the result of situations in which women are pregnant as the result of rape or incest.”
• “A lot of abortions involve situations in which the mother’s life is in danger”
• “Abortion is safe”
• “Abortion is Constitutionally Protected”
• “The number of abortions in the U.S. is going down.”
• “The people having abortions are mainly poor teenagers”
• “Roe v. Wade has lowered the demand for abortion”

Bunk: Abortion is rare

Let me start off with one simple observation that you can interpret the way you want to. Bill Clinton is the person who popularized the phrase “safe, legal, and rare.”

The truth is that abortion is extremely common and very widespread. The government reports that for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, there are 239 unborn babies aborted. So, for every five babies born this year, another baby who would have been born within the next nine months has his/her life terminated in the womb through abortion. Another way of looking at this is that if you exclude miscarriages and stillbirths, 19.3% of all pregnancies result in an abortion. And for most of the 35 years since Roe v. Wade was passed, there have been at least one million abortions every year in the U.S. And if it’s “rare” here, it’s clearly “well-done” from a global perspective - there are about 46 million abortions per year in the world.

Does this fit your definition of rare? If so, I disagree. But, if you think this way, the really good news for you is that poverty, hunger, war and crime are all pretty rare as well.

Bunk: Abortion is used only as an extreme last resort

Many pro-life people claim that abortion is being used as birth control of the last resort. Many pro-choice people dispute this characterization. However, it is clear that a very large percentage of abortion patients are people who have had another abortion at some point in the past.

The facts tell us that 46.3 percent of the abortions performed in 2004 involved patients who had at least one previous abortion. 11 percent had two previous abortions, 7.7% had three previous abortions and 2.4% had an unknown number of abortions before the one they had in 2004. Although no one is suggesting that most people who have abortions are taking the decision lightly, it seems unlikely that such a large group of people are facing extreme life-or-death circumstances on repeated occasions.

The three most common reasons given for having an abortion are: “Having a baby would dramatically change my life” (74%), “can’t afford a baby now” (73%), and “don’t want to be a single mother or having relationship problems” (48%). Of course, all of these issues are mitigated by choosing the option of adoption.

Bunk: Adoption is not always an option

Actually, in every state except for Nebraska and Alaska, there exist some form of “Save Haven” laws that allow for you to hand a newborn baby to the state (generally at a police station or hospital), no questions asked.

Also, some people have claimed that abortion is good because there are too many babies waiting to be adopted. The opposite is actually true. In fact, one of the effects of the increased number of abortions is that there are now fewer American babies available for adoption than there were in earlier years, which is one of the reasons for the increased number of international adoptions.

Bunk: Roe v. Wade has saved many lives

This popular argument is so frequently repeated but yet so full of bunk that I need to take some time to dig through it. Yecch. What a mess!

Wanna take a guess at the number of women who died during abortions the year before Roe was handed down by the Supreme Court? 50,000 a year? 10,000? 5,000? A brigade of martyred sisters so great in number that we’ll never know how many there actually were?

Try sixty three. A few more than five dozen tragic cases through all of the U.S. in the year 1972 - the year before Roe was decided - out of at least 586,760 abortions that year. Oh, yeah, and I forgot a very important point. Of these sixty three abortion deaths, 24 of the victims died during legal abortions (abortion was legal in a few places before Roe).

So, did Roe make a difference to the fate of millions of women? Almost certainly not anywhere near as much as abortion advocates would suggest. Two years after Roe, the number of women who died during legal abortions had temporarily climbed to a higher number (29) than those who died during legal abortions in 1972. Meanwhile, during the first three full years after Roe (when there would have been no reason for “back alley abortions” because abortion was legal), the number of abortions rose by 29.44%.

Hey, wait one minute, TVV! There had to be a lot of other women who died through abortion whose deaths were covered up! Yes, I’m sure that there were probably some abortion patents who died but whose deaths were not properly categorized. But, for all our government’s faults, one thing it has always been pretty good at is knowing when people die. And when the people who die are women of childbearing age whose lives are cut short under mysterious circumstances, we’ve always tended to take a closer look at things like that.

But let’s take something into account here. According to a report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, there were a lot more abortion deaths that took place in the earlier part of the twentieth century than in the latter part. In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women. By 1940 - long before Roe - the number had fallen to under 1,700. In 1950, the number of abortion deaths was slightly over 300. By 1970, it was under 150. A lot fewer women were dying as the result of abortion and it had nothing to do with Roe, which didn’t come along until 1973.

The CDC noticed something similarly else interesting with the number of women who didn’t have abortions but who died due to pregnancy complications. Just like the abortion deaths, maternal deaths were high in 1930. They decreased in 1940, 1950, and onward.

So, the rates for both abortion deaths and maternal deaths fell dramatically. Both fell dramatically long before the government legalized abortion. It certainly appears that the thing that helped save the lives of countless women was not legalized abortion. It was antibiotics and other medical advancements that made pregnancy safer for all women.

(Data Sources - Alan Guttmacher Institute and the CDC)

Bunk: A lot of abortions are the result of situations in which women are pregnant as the result of rape or incest.

Rape is one of the most gruesome and cruel crimes that a person can be victimized by. Because we all sympathize with rape and incest victims and are furious at those who commit these crimes, as many as 84% of us are estimated to not oppose abortion in these circumstances. However, because most of us are used to hearing pro-choice arguments that mention rape, we probably associate abortions and rape much more closely than they really are.

Very, very few abortions involve rape. According to a report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a survey of abortion patients in 2004 indicated that only 1% were having an abortion to end a pregnancy that resulted from a rape. Less then 0.5% were aborting a baby that was conceived through incest. And what’s more, these numbers have not changed since the survey the organization did in 1987.

The other problem with the argument that many abortions involve sexual assault is that the number of rapes in this country is very small in comparison to the number of abortions. According to the FBI, in 2004, there were 94,635 reported instances of forcible rape. If every single assault led to a pregnancy that was followed by an abortion, sexual assaults would be responsible for 11.2% of the abortions.

What about rapes that aren’t reported? Even if only half the sexual assaults in this country were reported and every one of those led to a pregnancy that led to an abortion, rape would be responsible for 22.6% of abortions. But let’s not forget that abortions themselves are underreported by virtue of the fact that we don’t have data from California, New Hampshire and West Virginia (explained below). Since there have been more than 1.1 million abortions every single year from 1977 until some states stopped reporting in the late 1990’s, we can make a more accurate supposition that there were at least a million abortions. And if this is true, it would mean that even if rapes were only reported half the time, that every one of these crimes resulted in pregnancy and that every victim chose to abort - even in this most extreme situation - it would mean that 81% of abortions had nothing to do with sexual assault.

Bunk: A lot of abortions involve situations in which the mother’s life is in danger

The Guttmacher survey suggests that a very small percentage of abortions involve pregnancies that pose at least some risk to the mother’s life (12% according to the survey). But then again, because almost every piece of proposed legislation for limiting or banning abortion procedures makes exception for cases in which the mother’s life is in danger, this isn’t a logical point of argument - there is little disagreement between the two sides in situations of genuine danger to the mother’s life.

Bunk: Abortion is safe

Believe it or not, legalized abortion didn’t end the horrible prospect of the patient dying as the result of an abortion. As we discussed, there were 24 women who died as a result of legal abortion in the year before Roe v. Wade. 39 other women died that year from illegal abortions. From 1974, the first full year of universally legal abortion, through 2003, the last year available in the report, there were an average of 11.2 women who died as the result of a legal abortion.

So, women still die as a result of legal abortion. And because the numbers are relatively low, both before Roe as well as today, we can see although the numbers are lower, they’re not that much lower. Both right before Roe and long after it, the number of women who died in abortions - legal and illegal - have been in the double digits.

There are other potential health risks for abortion that are possible but not medically proven. There have been studies that have suggested a link between abortion and breast cancer (an early 1990’s Howard University study found a significant increased risk in women who have had induced abortions; two other mid-1990’s studies made similar observations with other groups). Other researchers believe that some women who have abortions face an increased risk of depression. To be fair, many in the medical establishment have made strong statements dismissing the potential link between abortion and cancer (it has certainly not been proven that abortion causes cancer). But since many in the medical establishment are absolutely adamant that there is no link between vaccines and Autism in some children - while at the same time having not being able to explain some apparent correlations in the cases of some kids - I take the stronger pronouncements of the medical establishment with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Bunk: Abortion is Constitutionally Protected

There is no mention of abortion in the U.S. Constitution. And just because the Supreme Court decides a case in a particular manner does not mean that the matter is definitely Constitutional and certainly does not mean that it is morally right. In fact, let’s bring a moment of unity to this deeply divisive subject matter. No matter who you are, I guarantee that you don’t think that one of the following U.S. Supreme Court cases was decided the right way - either from a Constitutional point of view or from a moral standpoint. One of these cases will make you agree that not everything the Court decides is right.

Bush v. Gore - ruled that it was unconstitutional for Florida to recount all the ballots in the 2000 Election

Kelo v. City of New London - affirmed that the government has the right to seize privately-owned property as part of a comprehensive development plan. Otherwise known as Eminent Domain (”It’s not your house, ma’am. It’s our 50-yard line!”)

If you take comfort that a case decided by the Supreme Court is always decided in line with the Constitution and is always morally right, I envy you. It must be nice to look at the news and sleep well at night in the knowledge that the government always gets it right.

Bunk: The number of abortions in the U.S. is going down. So, stop talking about it, you repressive “anti-choice” folks!

The number sure is going down. That is, if you only count 47 states and make sure California isn’t one of them. And come to think of it, the amount of beef consumption in the U.S. is way, way down. (I forgot to mention … I’m not counting Texas).

From 1973 until 1997, the CDC received data on the number of abortions performed from all the 50 states. Then, starting in 1998 onward, California and New Hampshire no longer reported its numbers. Alaska stopped reporting from 1998 through 2002. Oklahoma stopped reporting for two years. As of 2004, the year of the CDC study cited here, the agency had information for only 47 of the 50 states. Many of the people who insist that the abortion rates have gone way down are comparing the incomplete figures of this decade where the most populous state and several others are excluded with the figures in the late 90’s in which all 50 states were included. So, yeah, there is a decrease. But it’s not a real one.

Bunk: The people having abortions are mainly poor teenagers

Simply not true. Actually, only 17.4 percent of the abortion patients in 2004 were under the age of twenty. 82.6% of the abortions were had by women who are twenty years of age or older. Almost half (49.8%) were age twenty five or older.

Bunk: Roe v. Wade has lowered the demand for abortion

Do you know how you see a Starbucks coffee shop today. A week from now, it’s full. Then two weeks from now, the good folks from corporate go and build another Starbucks across the street. You think to yourself “they’ve got too many of them. There’s no way they’ll fill them both.” But surely enough, in a short time, both places are full of customers and they’re off to building a new one right around the corner.

Roe v. Wade actually increased the demand for abortion at the same time that it increased the supply. Here’s a graph of how abortions rose for the ten years after Roe.

“The Values Voter”