With an Eye to the Children We Never Knew: The Bloodiest Century By Far

Roughly the equivalent of one seventh of the world’s present population has been killed in the womb of mothers over the last century.  (1.01 billion abortions vs 7.4 billion population)

In the US the proportion aborted is even higher: the total number is roughly the equivalent of one sixth of the present US population.  (58 million abortions vs 324 million population)

Government policy is the single biggest cause of this – by far.   The cases of South Africa and Poland demonstrate the historical rise (or fall) of abortion after the legal introduction (or elimination).

                                               
These are some of the biggest take-aways from the release of the most comprehensive and most carefully constructed database of abortion statistics for the world over the last century:  Abortion World Wide Report (2017). This PowerPoint by authors Thomas W. Jacobson, M.A., and Wm. Robert Johnston, Ph.D., gives a good overview of the massive report that upends the World Health Organization’s and the United Nations’ contentions on the data.  The debate on good statistics and reporting that this report ought to trigger will be interesting, though when good data is on the side of life and love “the opposition” tends to ignore it rather than bring attention to it by contesting it.

Pat Fagan, Director of MARRI

Round Three, the Corruption Continues: Academia and Abortion

The academic corruption MARRI previously described is not limited to same-sex marriage data: it is also present in abortion research. Studies repeatedly show that abortion inflicts mental and physical damage upon a sizeable proportion of women. Nevertheless, the American Psychological Association (APA) and similar professional organizations have refused to acknowledge this research, instead opting to cherry pick studies that support their pro-abortion policy agenda. Such an agenda is expected of Planned Parenthood; however, social science organizations are expected to serve the nation through a dispassionate search for the truth, letting the data do the talking.

The academy’s resistant response to David Fergusson’s research on the effects of abortion on mental health shows the distorting effects of abandoning scientific charter. Fergusson, who followed women over a 30-year period and controlled for over 30 variables, found that abortion can increase the risk of mental disorders. Fergusson, himself “pro-choice,” was already a much published and eminent researcher by the time of his first foray into the abortion field. He commented, “We went to four journals, which is very unusual for us - we normally get accepted the first time… I'm pro-choice but I've produced results which, if anything, favor a pro-life viewpoint… It's obvious I'm not acting out of any agenda except to do reasonable science about a difficult problem.”  He is a true scientist.

In 2008, in an attempt to dismiss a significant number of studies confirming abortion’s link to mental disorders, the American Psychological Association assembled a “Special Task Force” of pro-abortion researchers to evaluate the evidence. To reach their pre-determined conclusion, researchers violated many scientific standards. When questioned, lead author of the Task Force was unwilling to release the data for re-analysis because “It would be very difficult to pull this information together.” Despite these shortcomings, academia holds the APA report as the gold standard of research in this field.

Similar biases have marginalized research on the effect of abortion on physical health. For instance, advances in molecular breast biology and epidemiological studies have repeatedly found a link between abortion and breast cancer. After reviewing and synthesizing the existing research in this field, MARRI concluded that induced abortion is an independent risk factor for breast cancer.  Still the National Cancer Institute refuses to acknowledge this clear evidence.

These professional organizations are expected to be “guardians of scientific standards,” and claim to be so. But by deliberately pursuing the academically corrupt practice of cherry picking data, they become agenda-driven organizations that conceal the truth about how women and their unborn babies are affected.

For example, the academy’s failure to publish research evenhandedly on abortion has made it much easier for Planned Parenthood to use women for their own monetary gain. Recently, the Center for Medical Progress released a video in which senior physicians of Planned Parenthood admit to performing abortions in the manner that most efficiently delivers the most profitable tissue/ organs, which are later sold. While haggling prices with potential tissue buyers, Dr. Mary Gatter, President of the Medical Directors’ Council of Planned Parenthood, laughed, “I want a Lamborghini!” It seems many directors of abortion centers treat the women coming to them as business opportunities for the extraction of the fetal body parts that they carry within them, rather than as vulnerable human beings. Needless to say, providing women with the best research-based information on the mental and physical risks associated with abortion would jeopardize Planned Parenthood’s access to these body parts.

Planned Parenthood has no incentive to tell women the truth about the risks of abortion, while academic organizations like the APA refuse to acknowledge robust social science data revealing these risks. They are both complicit in a collusion of silence. Compassionate care for women involves fully informing them about the procedures they undergo and the effects of those procedures; dispassionate social science begins with an objective evaluation of data and subsequent reporting of robust research. At this stage, sadly, the APA cannot be trusted to abide by these basic expectations. That is an abortion of the role of the social sciences.

Abortion and Family Structure: Two Inseparable Issues

Abortion and family structure—two leading social issues of our day—are sometimes pitted as mutually exclusive issues. However, statistics mined by the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI) challenge this hypothesis. The National Survey of Family Growth (a large survey conducted by National Center for Health Statistics division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) showed that, among women aged 38 to 44, having had multiple abortions was least common among those raised in an intact family with two married biological parents.

MARRI’s “Mapping America” highlights two noteworthy points. First, women who were raised in married families with their mother and father present were least likely to have had multiple abortions than women from all other family structures (see Chart 1). The average American agrees, at the very least, that abortion is not a good to be sought after. Still, some liberal propagandists claim that it is not possible to decrease abortions and increase the number of intact families. According to them, unmarried women will inevitably get pregnant, and, unless the woman aborts her child, she will be a single mother. However, this logic is missing a key point: if more women were raised in intact married families to begin with, then fewer women would get pregnant out of wedlock. Decreasing abortion—a commonsense goal regardless of one’s stance on the sanctity of life—necessitates an increase in the number of intact families.

Chart 1

A second compelling point Mapping America highlights is the inherent value of marriage and the insufficiency of cohabitation. Chart 2 shows that roughly the same number of women raised by their biological father alone and with no father figure at all had multiple abortions. Most interesting, multiple abortions were least common among women raised by their biological father married to their biological mother, and most common among women raised by their biological father cohabiting with their biological mother. In fact, four times as many women with cohabiting parents rather than married parents had abortions. Although both groups of women were raised by their biological mother and father in a close relationship, the nature of the relationship contributed to very different outcomes. 

Chart 2

Far from being unrelated to abortion, family structure contributes to sexual mores that impact the rate of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and abortions. An intact, married family is a social good that must be sought after in all instances.

A Change of Culture for the U.S. Congress’s Backyard

Pat Fagan, Ph.D.
Director, MARRI

Southeast Washington is in Congress’s backyard, so it should be easy for Congressmen to get to know how their poverty programs are working. From the map above, the work of Henry Potrykus of MARRI, one can see the drastic difference between the Northwest (high income) section of Washington, D.C., and the poorest Southeast: rates virtually ten times different. (The rates are shown as fractions/decimals of 1; multiplying by 100 will yield percentage points.)

The rates of poverty tell a similar story … almost ten times the difference as well:

But teenage-out-of-wedlock births do not tell the same story. The highest rates lie elsewhere in the city. When I asked local juvenile crime and violence expert, Ron Moten, who knows the area well, his response was immediate: “Planned Parenthood is much more active there. Abortions are much more common there.” That is not data, but a hypothesis from a well-informed community activist. Is it true? What are the rates of abortion in these different PUMAs? Those data are not available in the American Community Survey (from which these choropleths are derived).

So what has the Welfare State given the poor in SE Washington? Poverty, virtually no marriage, and high abortion rates. This is not exactly a culture that will raise strong men and women capable of hard work, commitment to each other and to the children they beget together. 

Congress has no strategy to bring Southeast Washington alive. Neither does the Government of D.C. Putting such a question to welfare state experts is akin to asking a question for a different planet. But New York City had a similar problem among the Irish in the 1820’s and turned it around.  Dagger John, Archbishop John Hughes of New York devised and executed a very successful strategy.

Does South East DC have any champions for such cultural change? A great clergyman? A great mayor?