Abortion: Statistics
I recently completed a project for the Pregnancy Resource Center of Owasso. The above video is the final.
Anyway, in producing the material I did some research into statistics to use with the written material. This is the number that hit me the hardest. Only 24% of abortions are performed on those who call themselves non-religious. Another 7% connect with other religions. This means that nearly 70% of abortions are on those who call themselves Christians.
Do you hear why trying to legislate abortion floors me? If believers would just stop having abortions then the number would drop by 75%. Christians are fighting to make something illegal that’s largest client base are other Christians.
You can claim that those are the fringe believer or the once or twice a year kind but that actually flies in the face of the facts. Our local center will tell you that some are leading ministries within their church and are active in the Christian community.
Can we not see how this smacks of hypocrisy to the unbeliever? Maybe we should wait until the numbers change before we start pointing fingers at those who support and perform abortions. Maybe we should look at our hearts because if I’m not mistaken laws don’t bring holiness.
BODY LIFE 
Unbelievers have far less to lose with the consequences of an unexpected pregnancy. I’m sure anecdotal evidence will pour out of the woodwork about this, but 75% of total abortions in America points directly to the fact that young Christian women are terrified of the stigma attached to being an unwed mother at church.
that is amazing. wow.
wow, and yep, falantedios summed it up.
Christian Parents are probably the problem, too ashamed of their child, or not allowing their child to suffer the consequences for their actions.
I was looking for statistics about just this demographic. Where did your figure come from? You can email me if you would… I am doing an abortion trauma and recovery presentation in a couple of days and was looking for updated figures…. Thanks. And your video is no longer available?
The numbers come from the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
you are right that only 24% consider themself non-religious, but there are many religions not just Christianity… What I’m trying to say is that the whole 75% is not Christians, it includes Catholics, Jews and other religions.
Lydia,
Thanks for the comments. I looked into the numbers and figured out that I was reading them wrong. The numbers didn’t add up because I missed what they were trying to say when it comes to Protestant and “born-again evangelical.” That number was a subset of the Protestant number and I didn’t catch that. When it added up to 86% I knew something was wrong.
It also depends on what a person calls Catholics. I took into account the Jewish number 24 + 1 left 75 but I now realize that it is actually 68.7% which I would have said was nearly 70%.
I’m not sure how much better that is or whether that makes a difference when it comes to the discussion but it is more accurate.
My apologies to all who have read these numbers in the past. It was not my intent to distort the facts in anyway. I hope you will forgive me for my poor math.
I think it is interesting that if someone is not non-religious it automatically makes them a Christian, may i remind the people of this nation that there are more than one religion. I am not saying that Christians don’t get abortions, they do and it is wrong. I am just asking that you not cast all your blame on Christians. We are all at fault for the tregedy that is so freely allowed to happen in the United States. The child should not pay for the sins of the parents.
Josh,
Thanks for the comments. I’m not trying to blame anyone but I do think this information needs to be understood.
I made a mistake on the numbers that I corrected in a follow up post. Maybe I should rewrite the article to erase any confusion.
I’m not sure that nearly 70% casts a better light though.
What’s not to understand? I heard a preacher about a month ago say “God believes in the death penalty!”. He, like most people, want to have the right to kill. When something horrible happens to us – a family member, a child, wife or mother, is raped or murdered, we’d like to have the right to kill the wrongdoer. And, when the punishment has been taken, we can then have “closure”, which is code for “revenge”. “Revenge” feels good, though we will lie and say it’s to protect others. But, don’t be fooled, if it feels good – even in the tiniest bit, it is revenge.
Some will argue “self-defense!”, but that is not what is at issue. God never intended that we give up the right to protect our lives, family and country. Jesus showed an example of self-defense – he defended his Father’s temple by starting a fight with those money changer’s. He built a whip and used it to protect it. His disciples carried swords, and Peter used it to carefully remove the ear of a Roman soldier. That is an “up/down” stroke which obviously took great skill to not kill the man. And, isn’t it an innate thing in us to want to protect? But, once the bad guy is caught and is no more of a threat, self-defense ends.
If we were to learn by way of example, the punishment for the first murder – when Caine killed Able – was banishment. God banished Caine, yet he also protected him from harm. The blood of Able cried out to God from the ground on which it was spilled, but God refrained from revenge and separated Caine from society forever.
God put that example into a Commandment – the Sixth Commandment – Thou Shalt Not Kill. (See King James, Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17) However, there was a problem with that Commandment – it gave us no opportunity for revenge. So, modern “scholars” re-worded it saying it was better interpreted to be “Thou Shalt Not Murder” (See New King James, Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17) “Murder” is any “unlawful” killing. With the definition now changed, we can now have “lawful” killings, which are those killings approved of by the government. So, the simple and beautiful language of the Sixth Commandment, which gave no room for shades of grey, was no modified so as to allow for approved killings. The deeper problem with this is that this change requires man’s laws to now dictate God’s laws. Man now determines what is “Murder”, not God. Each state in the U.S. has it’s own definition of murder. “Murder” is generally defined in the U.S. as “The unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought.” You don’t see that in the Sixth Commandment. I don’t know how Hitler’s Germany defined murder, but apparently it wasn’t murder to kill a Jew. And, apparently, in Turkey at the turn of the century it must not have been murder to kill an Armenian. I have heard President Bush mention that Saddam Hussein killed many people – he gassed thousands and brutally killed others. But, since he was the head of the government there, it wasn’t murder. So, Saddam Hussein would not have violated the new and improved Sixth Amendment. I have not heard any scholars explain the definition of murder as it was in ancient Jerusalem, but by the new Sixth Amendment, I suspect we would not like whom it allowed men to legally kill. And, in our definition of laws, in the first trimester of life, it is not “murder” to kill an unborn baby. After that, there is a “weighing” process whereby the rights of the state are weighed against those of the mother in determining whether the killing is legal. So, a particular state’s definition of an abortion may vary from another state’s definition.
Government cannot define God’s laws or bizarre things happen.
We, as a society and as a religious lot, modified God’s Sixth Commandment so that we can kill those who we desire to kill. But that created an unnatural situation where lines are now blurred and we must weigh the value of a life against a written, man-made law. How can we, as Christians, demand that an unborn life be spared and in the same breath that another life be killed? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You must view all God created human life as infinitely valuable or none of it will ever be so.
It must be repeated – It is perverse to define God’s Commandments by man-made law. And, that is exactly what the new Sixth Commandment does when it states Thou Shalt Not Murder.
Errata – My apologies for using the term “Amendment” when I meant “Commandment”.
I’m doing a research paper on abortion this is what I found on the religions… Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as “Born-again/Evangelical”.
http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html
http://www.mswm.org/abortions.worldwide.abortionstatistics.htm
this is very important information . could you please provide your source?
I am following up on Marzuq’s response to Lydia. I, too, would like to know the resource where you obtained your information. I have been trying for awhile to pin that down a bit more than Guttmacher has. If you got it from Guttmacher, please advise which article. Thanks.
Hi, Lydia, I did check the two links on your note and saw the stats listed thereon. If you found any specific articles instead of overall summaries, I am still interested. Thanks!
That’s pretty much all I found I was just looking for some statistics.
George Gingo you are decieved. You are like every other hypocritical bastard that I am ashamed and perhaps refuse to call my brother in Christ. Read the Bible and you will find that Jesus condemed the rulers of the time because they refused to give justice. Jesus said that rulers are given a sword by God to punish evildoers. Nowhere in the Bible is the death penalty condemned. Try reading the law of Moses, where you will find that just about every other law required the death penalty by stoning. I say again, JUST ABOUT EVERY OTHER LAW OF MOSES REQUIRED THE DEATH PENALTY!!!
Job was commended because he gave justice. He was the most powerful man in his region.
You cannot distort the law of God by saying that He does not approve of the death penalty. You are satisfying your own weak and perverse heart, you pussy.
To the strong go the responsibility of justice. To say otherwise is to go against God himself.
Peter was a man of passion. He never did any thing halfheartedly. He missed that guy’s head. That is why Jesus told him to put his sword away, because Peter was fighting. Peter was trying to kill, not be nice.
Laws don’t stop women from getting abortion. The issue is the heart. If these women claim to be Christians, or born-again Christians, then we better look at the heart instead of what they are doing. Have you ever hated your brothers? Jesus said it’s the same as murder. I am against abortion, but I will try to have mercy and compassion on these women because they need mercy and compassion just like me. I also want to say that people can take the name Christians but it doesn’t mean they’re Christians. So the issue is split. John also said if we repent, Jesus is just and faithful, he will forgive us.
Thank you for those thoughts midwestgirl. God bless.