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 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 1.21 million abortions performed in the United States, or 3,322 abortions per day.
Since the founding of the United States in 1776, 1.6 million Americans soldiers have been killed in battle. Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, over 55 million unborn Americans have been aborted—more than 34 times the number of war deaths. As of October 2013, approximately 6,800 Americans had died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan since hostilities began, which is 0.05% 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 2011, 14,612 murders and 83,425 rapes were reported to the FBI—so abortion is 83 times more common than murder and 15 times more common than rape.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, members of some 6.7 million households will go hungry at some point during the year. While hunger is a tremendous social problem, especially in a country as wealthy as the United States, it cannot compare to the injustice of being killed; few Americans die of starvation, but millions are aborted.
Such problems as these deserve to be addressed by concerned Americans. If we would not chastise those who advocate against war, crime and hunger for focusing on the specific problems they feel called to address, why would we chastise those in the pro-life movement for focusing on ending abortion?
Sources:
Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Violent Crime.” Crime in the United States 2011. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crimein-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime.
Wikipedia contributors. “United States military casualties of war.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed October 10, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_military_casualties_of_war&oldid=576582494.
Guttmacher Institute. “Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States.” July 2013. http://guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html.
ICasualties. “Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom Casualties.” Accessed October 10, 2013. http://icasualties.org.
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 in 2011.” September 2012. http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/884529/err-141-summary.pdf.
