Aren’t there worse evils than abortion — like war, crime and hunger?
There are many evils in this world, and all who dedicate their lives to fighting these evils are to be applauded. Those who are dedicated to fighting abortion believe that abortion is a serious enough evil to deserve a full-scale effort like the pro-life movement.
It might be helpful to compare the scope of abortion with the scope of other evils. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 930,160 abortions performed in the United States, or 2,548 abortions per day.
Since the founding of the United States in 1776, 1.35 million Americans soldiers have been killed in battle. Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, over 64 million unborn Americans have been aborted — more than 47 times the number of war deaths. Approximately 6,800 Americans died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, which is 0.04% of the number of abortions during the same period. And on September 11, 2001, more lives were taken by abortion than in the terrorist attacks of that day.
In 2019, 14,014 murders and 122,822 rapes were reported to the FBI — so abortion is 66 times more common than murder and 7 times more common than rape.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, members of some 17 million households will go hungry at some point during the year. Hunger on this scale is a tremendous social problem — even scandalous in a country as wealthy as the United States. But while almost no one dies of starvation in the U.S., nearly a million human beings are aborted every year.
No one would ever dream of criticizing someone who has devoted their life to fighting hunger for having such a singular focus. We recognize a problem of this magnitude deserves dedicated advocates. So too with abortion.
Sources:
Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Violent Crime.” Crime in the United States 2019. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-16.
Guttmacher Institute. “Induced Abortion in the United States.” November 2023. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states.
Jones, Rachel K. and Kathryn Kooistra. “Abortion Incidence and Access to Services in the United States, 2008.” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 43, no. 1 (March 2011): 41-50.
United States Department of Agriculture. “Food Security in the United States.” October 25, 2023. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx.
Wikipedia contributors. “United States Military casualties of war.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 1, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war.
