Abortion: Demographic Disaster
ShareCHAPTER 48 — ABORTION: DEMOGRAPHIC DISASTER
American Life League
One remarks nowadays over all Greece such a low birth rate and in a general manner such depopulation that the towns are deserted and the fields lying fallow, although this country has not been ravaged by war or epidemic. The cause of this harm is evident. By avarice or by cowardice, the people, if they marry, will not bring up children that they ought to have. At most, they bring up one or two ... It is in this manner that the scourge, before it is noticed, has rapidly developed. The remedy is in ourselves, we have but to change our morals.
Plutarch, remarking on the decline of Greek civilization.[1]
Anti-Life Philosophy.
Abortion is really no big deal. All we are doing is getting rid of unwanted children who would just be abused anyway.
Safe and legal abortion is a great benefit to our nation, because it cuts down on overpopulation, culls out the unwanted human beings who would just wind up on the welfare rolls anyway (thereby saving us billions of tax dollars per year), and demonstrates that our society is progressive and caring.
The Impacts of Abortion on Society.
A feminist is an evolutionary anachronism, a Darwinian blind alley. In biological terms, there is nothing that identifies a maladaptive pattern so quickly as a below-replacement level of reproduction; an immediate consequence of feminism is what appears to be an irreversible decline in the birth-rate. Nations pursue feminist policies at their peril.
Katarina Runske.[2]
The Road Oft Traveled ...
We didn't listen to Plutarch thousands of years ago, and abortion, contraception, and infanticide decimated Greece. His ancient culture was gradually replaced in large part by immigrants from Christian nations.
We in the United States have now been afflicted with abortion on demand for nearly two decades, and we have buried a generation of children the size of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago combined. More than ten percent of our nation's population has simply disappeared into the ever-so-efficient latter-day concentration and extermination camps we know as abortuaries.
The social effects of this slaughter are profound, manifold, and sometimes quite subtle. These impacts are just now beginning to be felt in the businesses, schools and nurseries of our country, and population demographics experts are becoming concerned about the inevitable chronic imbalances in our social security system and various retirement programs.
Who Have We Lost?
Strangely, the most profound societal effects of the abortion slaughter are those that are most often ignored: The resulting direct loss in human resources and capabilities.
We have killed a vast number of children equivalent to the combined populations of 14 states: Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.[3] It is a riveting tactic to display a map of the United States with all of these States whited out, since they comprise more than half the land area of the contiguous 48 states. This diagram gives an audience some idea of the colossal magnitude of the abortion disaster.
What types of people would have been alive if not for abortion?
Assuming that the class of those exterminated would resemble in basic character the surviving population, this country has so far lost to "a woman's right to choose" all of those persons listed in Figure 48-1.[3]
FIGURE 48-1
WHAT HUMAN TALENT AND SKILLS HAVE WE LOST TO ABORTION?
Two United States presidents and two vice-presidents
Three Supreme Court Justices, including one Chief Justice
16 American Nobel Prize winners
25 state governors
33 United States senators and 255 United States congressmen
28 United States ambassadors
85 Olympic gold medalists
200 bona-fide scientific geniuses
2,200 state legislators
3,500 Federal, district, and local court judges
7,500 professional athletes, including major-league sports players
15,000 architects
17,000 dentists
36,000 priests and ministers
60,000 Ph.Ds in every field
65,000 doctors and physicians
75,000 college and university professors
75,000 attorneys (30,000 of them women)
80,000 police and detectives
100,000 scientists
165,000 registered nurses (RNs)
175,000 writers, artists, and entertainers
185,000 engineers
255,000 heavy and light truck drivers
385,000 professional teachers, from kindergarten to high school
540,000 secretaries and stenographers
AND:
Two National Organization for Women (NOW) presidents;
Two National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) presidents;
350 full-time paid pro-abortion activists and lobbyists;
450 part-time and full-time ACLU lawyers
1,100 abortionists
5,000 clinic escorts
50,000 members of NARAL, NOW, ACLU, American Atheists, and other
pro-abortion groups;
6,000,000 single-issue pro-abortion voters, and, of course,
15,000,000 unborn women who will never have the opportunity to exercise their
"right to choose" (or any other right, for that matter).
Reference: United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Reference Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. 1990 (110th Edition), 991 pages. Table 275, "Earned Degrees Conferred, by Field of Study and Level of Degree: 1971 to 1987." Table 434, "Composition of State Legislatures by Political Party Affiliation: 1982 to 1988." Table 645, "Employed Civilians, by Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1988." Table 1,001, "Civilian Employment of Scientists, Engineers, and Technicians, by Occupation and Major Industrial Sector: 1988." Table 1,005, "Nobel Prize Laureates in Chemistry, Physics, and Physiology/Medicine Selected Countries: 1901 to 1988." Assumes six-year average term for officeholders and ten years for judges.
This list, of course, refers only to the current generation of unborn babies who should have been born. The impact of abortion is magnified greatly when we realize that we are also losing forever the capabilities and talents of the tens of millions of children of these 30 million never-to-be human beings.
Perhaps humorist Sam Levinson said it best in his book Everything But Money;
I believe that each newborn child arrives on earth with a message to deliver to mankind. Clenched in his little fist is some particle of yet unrevealed truth, some missing clue, which may solve the enigma of man's destiny. He has a limited amount of time to fulfill his mission and he will never get a second chance nor will we. He may be our last hope. He must be treated as top-sacred.
The preborn baby is not currently treated as top-anything; if he is not wanted, he is mere biological garbage.
The direct loss of life caused by abortion exceeds that of all of this country's wars put together, not only in baby deaths and injuries to women, but in lost wages, consumed services and goods, and taxes, totalling more than forty-seven trillion dollars ($47,460,000,000,000, or ten times the national debt), as shown in Figure 48-2.
As the familiar song 'Blowing in the Wind' so plaintively asks, "When will we ever learn?"
TABLE 48-2
THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF ABORTION ON THE UNITED STATES
[A medium text size on your computer's 'view' setting is recommended, otherwise, the tables may be discombobulated.]
Category of Consumption of Services
or Durable and Nondurable Goods[A] Total Per Person[A]
Food $163,500
Housing and household operation[B] 333,100
Transportation[C] 147,900
Medical care[D] 161,300
Clothing, accessories, and jewelry 38,400
Personal care 17,700
Personal business[E] 85,300
Recreation[F] 89,800
Other items 150,600
Total Lifetime Consumption of Goods
and Services Lost Per Abortion $1,177,600
Taxes Lost Per Abortion [G]
Federal income taxes $180,600
State income taxes 49,700
FICA payroll taxes 70,700
Federal retirement taxes 74,000
Property taxes 29,400
Total Lifetime Taxes Lost Per Abortion $404,400
Total Consumed Goods and Services
and Taxes Lost Per Abortion $1,582,000
Total Cost to the Nation For All Abortions so Far;
Consumption of goods and services $35,328,000,000,000
Loss of taxes 12,132,000,000,000
Total Losses Due to 30 Million Abortions $47,460,000,000,000
Reference: Bureau of the Census, United States Department of Commerce. National Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1990 (110th Edition), 960 pages, $25.00.
[A] Table 698, "Personal Consumption Expenditures, By Type of Expenditure in Current Dollars: 1980 to 1988." This table shows that the percent change in total personal consumption expenditures from 1985 to 1988 was 7.2% per year. If this percentage is used from 1988 to 1993, and if an inflation rate of 3% is assumed, the total change over five years is (1.072-1.030)**5 = 22.8%. This percentage is multiplied by the numbers given in Table 698 to arrive at current values in July 1993 dollars. This total is then divided by the total population of the United States in July 1993 (256,466,000, given in Table 16, "Projections of Total Population, By Race: 1989 to 2025" (Middle Series)), to arrive at total losses per year, given in the upper half of this table. Finally, this figure is multiplied by the average life expectancy of in 1993 76 years (Table 103, "Expectation of Life at Birth, 1960 to 1988, and Projections, 1990 to 2010"), to arrive at total losses per abortion.
[B] Household furniture, semidurable household furnishings, cleaning and polishing preparations, and household utilities (electricity, water, gas, fuel oil, coal, and sanitation), and telephone or telegraph.
[C] Purchase price of new and used vehicles and their upkeep, public transportation, and airlines, bus, train, and other fares.
[D] Drug preparations and sundries, dentists and physicians, health insurance, and hospital costs.
[E] Attorneys, life insurance, and funeral and burial expenses.
[F] Toys, magazines, newspapers, radios and televisions, records, etc.
[G] The average number of persons in a household is 2.62. This number is derived from Table 718, "Money Income of Households Percent Distribution By Money Income Level and Selected Characteristics: 1987," subheading entitled "Size of Household." The average taxes by type per household are given in Table 722, "Number of Households Paying Taxes and Amount of Taxes, By Type of Tax and Before-Tax Money Income: 1986." Each of these numbers is indexed from 1986 to 1993 by an average of 2.5 percent per year and then divided by the total number of 2.62 persons per household (derived above) and multiplied by the average person's lifespan of 76 years (explained below) to arrive at total taxes lost per person over his or her lifetime in 1993 dollars, as shown in the above table.
The Typical Pro-Abortion Rebuttal.
The inevitable and very predictable pro-abortion response to this devastating loss of positive human potential is that there will be a corresponding loss of negative human potential, i.e., murderers, rapists, drug pushers, and (perhaps most importantly) "misogynist, homophobic, Bible-beating fanatics."
A number of leading scientists have actually proposed mandatory genetic screening and abortion of preborn babies who might at some future time exhibit 'socially undesirable tendencies.' For example, Dr. David A. Hamburg of the psychiatry department of the Stanford University Medical School has approved of the UNESCO (United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization) theory that abortion might be a way to prevent a future Genghis Khan or Hitler from being born.[4] The implementation of such an abortion program would require the mandatory genetic testing of all unborn babies via amniocentesis or chorionic villi sampling (CVS), and the mandatory abortion of those babies whose genes were deemed "unsatisfactory" by the eugenicists. This figure would vary from 20 to 50 percent of all pregnancies.
The pro-life answer to this logically and ethically repugnant nonsense is that nobody (including the world's leading geneticists) has even begun to develop much less perfect any method for accurately divining which babies will be 'good' and which babies will be 'bad' when they grow up. This is true even in the most oppressive situations like the deep ghetto.
Even if we did have a reliable method for determining which babies would be a detriment to society (and there are scientists working on this problem right now with the Genome Project), we would have no right whatever to execute the child that we found had a predisposition to evil. This would be morally equal to killing all of the born children of ghetto mothers, since crime in such areas is much higher than in the surrounding suburbs.
Abortion is the ultimate in unconstitutional 'prior restraint.'
Other Direct Demographic Impacts.
Overview.
Of course, the direct loss of human manpower and talent is not the only effect that abortion wreaks upon a society. A country suffers many other inevitable consequences of slaughtering one-third of its children, as described in the following paragraphs.
Lower Support Ratios.
As fewer and fewer children are born, there will be less working people to support the elderly through the already-bankrupt Social Security system. The number of workers (historical and projected) paying into the Social Security fund for each retiree in this country are as follows.
THE EVER-INCREASING STRESS ON THE SOCIAL SECURITY FUND:
THE DECREASING WORKER:RETIREE RATIO
1970: 3.7 workers to 1 retiree
1980: 3.2 workers to 1 retiree
1990: 3.4 workers to 1 retiree
2000: 3.2 workers to 1 retiree
2010: 2.9 workers to 1 retiree
2020: 2.4 workers to 1 retiree
2030: 2.0 workers to 1 retiree
2040: 1.8 workers to 1 retiree
2050: 1.5 workers to 1 retiree
References. Erik Eckholm. "Social Security, Medicare: Still Sacred Cows?" The Oregonian, September 2, 1992, page A3. Also see Allan Carlson. "The Malthusian Budget Deficit." Human Life Review, Summer 1985, pages 35 to 47.
Our current total tax burden will have to increase to more than 40 percent of every worker's salary in order to pay for Social Security and other benefits promised to workers retiring by the year 2010.[5] In fact, Social Security and other Federal retirement benefits will consume over half of the Federal budget by 2025.[6]
If the stresses on the Social Security system are extreme now, imagine how much greater they will be in only twenty years! The growing worker-retiree imbalance is already lending impetus to a general push for euthanasia. All national magazines that cater to the elderly (including Modern Maturity Magazine) relentlessly extol the virtues of an 'easy and good death.'
As bad as the Social Security situation is in the United States, it is even worse in European countries that have had lower birth rates for a number of years. In France, there are now only 2.2 workers per retiree, a ratio that will decline to 1.9 by the turn of the century.[7]
In Germany, payroll taxes will rise from the current 18.5% to more than 41% by 2030 if retirement benefit programs remain unchanged. This is because Germany's workers now support retirees at a 2.5 to 1 ratio, which will decline to 1.4 to 1 by 2030.[6]
The number of new job seekers is now decreasing by 3.6% per year in Germany and 2.0% in Britain.[6]
Japan is in the most untenable situation of all. Its worker-retiree ratio will be chopped in half by 2025. Even now, Japan's Ministry of Labor, in a survey of 268 of Japan's largest companies, found that they could only recruit about 20 percent of the new workers they would have liked to.[6]
Program Cutbacks.
As more and more tax money goes to support retirees, 'peripheral' programs or those with less than immediate urgency (such as space exploration and energy research) will find their budgets tightened to the strangling point. This is obviously already happening. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and all government agencies doing research into alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, have felt the deep bite of the budget cutbacks.
As the United States budget deficit grows even larger, there will be insistent demands from every quarter to cut everything in the budget (except, of course, Social Security).
Meanwhile, any effort by pro-family forces to try to "up" the birth rate (including increased tax exemptions for children) is instantly attacked by Neofeminists bleating that it is some kind of "far-Right plot." For example, Betty Friedan suspects "a secret agenda on the right to get women back into the home." And Princeton University sociologist Suzanne Keller alleges that "I suspect all these proposals are geared toward stopping women from leading independent lives."[8]
Impacts on the Armed Forces.
Western European countries such as Switzerland, Italy, and West Germany are already finding it impossible to fill the ranks of their volunteer armed forces due to the fact that abortion has eliminated much of their younger generations.[9]
Before pacifists shout "good thing!," they should remember two points; (1) the draft will return as a result of a declining pool of volunteers, and (2) smaller armies will mean that countries will have to rely more on a massive retaliatory capability in the form of larger nuclear weapons stockpiles.[9]
The United States will face this shortfall by 1995. The various countries of the former Soviet Union are already in the throes of a manpower shortage for its armed forces.
Think of the implications for world peace!
Ethnic Impacts.
As minority races have numerous children, they replace the White race, which is beginning to die out. Figures 48-3 and 48-4 show that the United States will be a nonwhite nation in less than a century as Hispanics, who tend to be pro-life and take their Catholic Faith seriously, resist the ascendent anti-life mentality in this country and continue to have many more children than any other ethnic group.
FIGURE 48-3
HISTORICAL AND PROJECTED RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE UNITED STATES POPULATION, 1840 to 2080
Ethnic Group Percentages
Year Population White Black Hispanic Other
1840 17,069,000 60.5 16.3 10.9 12.3
1860 31,443,000 68.9 14.0 8.9 8.2
1880 50,155,000 74.9 11.4 7.5 6.2
1900 75,994,000 77.8 10.3 6.8 5.1
1920 105,710,000 78.9 10.2 6.3 4.6
1940 131,669,000 76.8 11.7 6.9 4.6
1960 179,223,000 77.7 12.2 6.3 3.8
1980 226,545,000 76.7 13.2 6.7 3.4
2000 267,498,000 74.1 13.3 8.8 3.8
2020 283,700,000 68.1 13.1 13.3 5.5
2040 300,300,000 58.8 11.3 21.8 8.1
2060 296,100,000 56.0 10.8 24.2 9.0
2080 292,000,000 48.7 10.5 30.8 10.0
Reference: United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Reference Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1990 (110th Edition). United States Government Printing Office. Table 12, "Total Population, By Sex, Race, and Age: 1988;" Table 15, "Projections of the Hispanic Population By Age and Sex: 1989 to 2010;" and Table 16, "Projections of Total Population, By Race: 1989 to 2025."
FIGURE 48-4
HISTORICAL AND PROJECTED RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE UNITED STATES POPULATION, 1880 TO 2090
GRAPH NOT AVAILABLE
References: Calculations are based upon demographic data contained in United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Reference Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. 1990 (110th Edition), 991 pages. Table 11, "Total Population, By Race: 1960 to 1988," Table 14, "Estimated Components of Population Change, By Race: 1960 to 1988," Table 15, "Projections of the Hispanic Population By Age and Sex: 1989 to 2010," and Table 16, "Projections of Total Population, By Race: 1989 to 2025."
Meanwhile, the percentage of the Black race will continue to slowly decline in this country. And this loss of representation will result in direct impacts upon young Black people.
For example, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the percentage of jobs requiring a college degree will rise from 22% to 30% by the turn of the century. With Black abortion rates and high school dropout rates (partly caused by 'victimization' programs that cause social enervation) at 40%, few Blacks will be getting into the work force at the higher levels. Additionally, 60% of all Black children live in single-parent households, the most likely to be in poverty. College scholarships can only go far, and 90% of poor kids will never attend school past high school.[6]
This shows that groups of people within a country that are addicted to the abortion 'right' will suffer more intensely than those that are not so addicted, a principle that holds true on the national level as well.
European countries that have been victims of permissive abortion for even longer periods than the United States are feeling ethnic impacts right now. France, for example, will be a Muslim country by the turn of the century. Muslims, who are very pro-life, know that they can conquer the world with patience and with children. As Atifa Dawat, an Iranian delegate to the July 1985 conference entitled "Forum '85," in Nairobi, Kenya, stated, "The more children we have, the better. When there are enough Moslems in the world, then we will have world victory."[10]
If 'Christians' continue to abort their children while Muslims continue to have large families, then the religion of Islam truly deserves its "world victory."
In the new unified Germany, rioting has broken out in response to the incoming flood of foreign workers who are needed in order to make up for the fifteen million young Germans who have been aborted over the past thirty years. As expected, the world media has painted this as a "right-wing backlash," with a "small minority of Nazis" causing nationwide disruption. Common sense reveals the truth: Germany is caught in an impossible situation. It must become an ethnic melting-pot with great speed in order to survive, and almost all Germans, regardless of age, resent the influx of foreigners, which has caused their taxes to double in the past fifteen years.
Germany's culture is extremely top-heavy with elderly people, and visiting American pro-lifers have noted the common sight of dogs being dressed up in expensive clothes and even being wheeled about in baby carriages!
The Institut National d'Etudes Demographique (INED) has noted that Europe has had a shortfall in births amounting to 18 million over the past two decades. This shortfall has reached 1.5 million per year and, although the trend is decelerating because people simply would have a hard time having fewer babies than they are now, each year that it continues at this rate causes severe demographic damage.
INED's statistics the ten European countries are shown below.
TABULATION OF SHORTFALL OF NATIVE EUROPEAN BIRTHS, 1973 TO 1992
Births Required Annual
Year for Replacement Births Shortfall
1968 3,500,000 4,206,000
1969 3,564,000 4,096,000
1970 3,630,000 3,989,000
1971 3,662,000 3,893,000
1972 3,694,000 3,799,000
1973 3,734,000 3,641,000 93,000
1974 3,775,000 3,490,000 285,000
1975 3,794,000 3,350,000 444,000
1976 3,814,000 3,216,000 598,000
1977 3,846,000 3,181,000 665,000
1978 3,879,000 3,147,000 732,000
1979 3,911,000 3,208,000 703,000
1980 3,943,000 3,271,000 672,000
1981 3,980,000 3,232,000 748,000
1982 4,018,000 3,194,000 824,000
1983 4,058,000 3,162,000 896,000
1984 4,099,000 3,131,000 968,000
1985 4,140,000 3,100,000 1,040,000
1986 4,181,000 3,069,000 1,112,000
1987 4,223,000 3,039,000 1,184,000
1988 4,265,000 3,009,000 1,256,000
1989 4,308,000 2,979,000 1,329,000
1990 4,351,000 2,950,000 1,401,000
1991 4,395,000 2,921,000 1,474,000
1992 4,439,000 2,892,000 1,547,000
Total 20-Year Shortfall: 17,971,000
The ten European countries represented above are Austria, Belgium, France, Netherlands, West Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark. Greece is not included.[11]
The former Soviet Union (and now its component nations) currently hold the dubious title of 'world abortion champion,' recording even more "kills" than mainland China, which has a population four times larger. The Soviet Union suffered an incredible 12.8 million abortions in 1965 out of a total population of 233 million ten times the current rate in the United States! For more than fifteen years, three-fourths of all Soviet women's pregnancies have ended in abortion.[12]
This Soviet addiction to abortion is the direct cause of many bizarre and sometimes devastating demographic changes. For example, in 1987 the Soviet authorities announced a program to forcibly reduce the birthrate among the mostly Moslem people of the Republic of Tadzhikstan, because their families, averaging six children, had created "a demographic situation which is growing complicated."[13]
This quaint and vastly understated phrase means that Soviet women have been aborting the 'native' population out of existence for decades, and the Soviets must now force other populations to bring down their birthrates as well, or they will simply be overwhelmed by their so-called 'minorities.'
The Soviets are taking the easy way out instead of trying to limit their own abortion rate, they are compelling other ethnic groups to emulate the sordid practice of aborting three-fourths of their unborn children.
Some Soviet authorities have finally recognized the gravity of the situation, and are speaking out. According to E.A. Shevardnadze, head of the Georgia Soviet Socialist Republic,
Has anyone the moral right to ignore the fact that so many women are striving to rid themselves of the future generation? In the past year, there were 100,000 abortions in this Republic, twice as many as in 1960. And this is only officially registered abortions. Mostly the basis of not wanting children is frivolousness and egoism. And certain doctors not only do not prevent this, but engage in a crude violation of the law, carrying out the dubious practice at home.[14]
Impacts On Businesses and Schools.
Businesses have been feeling the growing impacts of our country's permissive abortion laws for some time now. As household income rises, the number of children generally drops. This means that a smaller and smaller clientele will be accumulating and concentrating a greater share of our nation's wealth as time goes on. This 'poverty gap' is the phenomenon condemned by the very same people who support abortion on demand.
In general, this trend will result in a smaller, more competitive, and more lucrative market for luxury goods and a larger and less competitive market for staple goods such as food, larger family cars, and moderately-priced clothing. Figure 48-2 shows that the average person consumes almost $1.2 million in goods and services in their lifetime. The 30 million abortions suffered by this country in the last 22 years represent a total loss of 35 trillion dollars in unconsumed goods and services, or about one-third of the total current and future market.
Schools are beginning to feel the pinch as well. Children born after 1972 are literally 'abortion survivors.' One-third of their classmates have been 'culled' by pro-abortion 'parents' and wound up in landfills or little ovens specifically constructed to incinerate their sad little bodies.
Every community has at least one boarded-up grade school. Many high schools are closing or consolidating as the 'birth dearth' reaches them. And now, as 17- and 18-year olds become college freshmen, our institutions of higher learning are bracing for smaller classes.
In the Spring of 1990, Boston College Vice President Leo Sullivan stated that Northeastern University had to cancel all pay raises and eliminate some jobs because the college was 700 students short of filling its freshman class. He also said that Boston College applications had dropped from 15,000 to 12,000 in five years, and that the quality of students was also declining because there simply were not as many 'top-notch' applicants.[15]
Losses in Tax Revenues.
One of the most persuasive arguments offered by pro-abortionists in support of Medicaid funding of abortion is the hideous Hegelian assertion that an abortion costs less in terms of public support than bringing up a child to the age of 18 on welfare.
In support of this position, they grossly exaggerate the costs incurred by a welfare child. Typical of such lies is the June 29, 1977 testimony against the Hyde Amendment offered by Sen. Charles H. Percy (R.-Ill.), who said that "If we can avoid a $100,000 cost for a $200 [abortion] investment and make a humanitarian investment at the same time what sense does it make to say, 'We cannot afford $200 for this expenditure [for an abortion]?'"
Of course, we might use the identical logic to point out that it would take about the same amount of money ($200) to take an equally 'unwanted' homeless person off the street and then euthanize and cremate him. Think of the decrease in welfare payments and crime that society would benefit from if all of the half-million 'hard-core' homeless were eliminated!
Aside from the extreme callousness of such a position, the pro-aborts ignore the fact that less than five percent of all children born into a welfare families will remain on welfare until the age of 18. In fact, the average period of welfare dependency for a child is just two years.[16]
If the matter of public funding is examined in terms of the long run, abortion is a very bad deal for society indeed, as shown below.
STATE'S DECISION: PAY FOR ABORTION OR DELIVERY?
A. COSTS OF ABORTION AND DELIVERY
Cost of delivery: $2,400
Average cost of postnatal care: $1,350
Cost of welfare for two years (average
time of child on welfare): $2,340
Total cost of delivering
a welfare baby $6,090
Cost of Medicaid abortion: $250
State and property taxes paid by
baby during 30 years in the
work force (see Figure 48-2); $79,100
B. IF BABY IS ABORTED
State comes out ahead ($6,090 - $250) = $5,840
C. IF BABY IS DELIVERED
State comes out ahead ($79,100 - $6,090) = $73,010
This lack of foresight and preoccupation with quick and easy solutions is a hallmark of pro-abortion 'thinking,' and should be expected in any debate or discussion. Because they are naturally shallow thinkers, concerned only with their own comfort, pro-aborts invariably 'examine' a problem only from the most superficial level. They apparently cannot be bothered to perform even the most simple calculations to analyze an issue and discern the truth.
Abortion Impacts Upon Gender Balance.
In the People's Republic of China (the PRC), the birth of boys is often hailed as "a big happiness," and the appearance of a girl is cause for a muted celebration of "a small happiness." In light of the PRC's coercive abortion program (described in Chapter 50), and the lesser value of girls in Chinese society, female infanticide (femicide) is extremely common. The March 3, 1983 People's Daily admitted that "The butchering, drowning, and leaving to die of female infants has become a grave social problem."
China's newborn male-to-female sex ratio was about 1.085 in 1981, compared to the historical Chinese ratio of 1.06. This means that there was a 'shortfall' of 232,000 baby girls in 1981. The Chinese sex ratio climbed to 1.110 in 1983, for a shortfall of 345,000 baby girls for the year.[17] In light of the fact that amniocentesis, sonography, and other means of detecting fetal sex before birth are almost unknown outside the largest Chinese cities, it is obvious that the vast majority of these 'disappearing' girls are killed at birth, when their parents discover their sex.
If the 1983 sex ratio held true for the remainder of the 1980s, about 3.5 million baby girls were killed at birth due to their gender in the last decade alone.
Kang Ling of the Secretariat of the All-China Women's Federation estimates that, by 2010, there will be 40 million males of marriageable age who will be unable to find wives, as a direct result of this mass femicide.[18]
Beijing's China News Service has also announced that 93 percent of unmarried adults in Beijing are men. Single men outnumber single women by a million in the 29 to 49 age group in Beijing alone. Men's prospects for marriage, of course, are even bleaker in the rural areas, where female infanticide is most prevalent.
The PRC is not the only nation that devalues its women with the full support of Neofeminists. There are thousands of 'sex-selection' abortions performed in this country annually, and almost all of these abortions kill unborn women. The impacts of this hideous practice on our country's gender balance are small now, but will inevitable become more acute as the younger generations age and as the practice of 'sex selection' becomes more and more popular.
For more information on 'sex-selection' abortions, see Chapter 85.
Two Children for Replacement?
In order for a country's population to remain stable, its married couples must produce a certain specific number of children. This number varies somewhat from nation to nation, and depends on such variables as fertility rates, infant mortality, and marriage customs.
The most important factor in achieving a population replacement rate is the replacement of women of childbearing age (15 to 44). If every person born lived to a fixed age (say 75), and nobody died before this time, and if everyone were fertile, a replacement rate would be achieved if every woman would have exactly one daughter.
However, of 100 infant girls, three will die before the beginning of the childbearing years at 15, seven will remain unmarried, and eight will be unable to have children due to natural or environmentally-induced infertility.[19]
Therefore, every hundred married women will have to produce 110 daughters on the average assuming that all married women are fertile in their childbearing years.
And what about boys?
In most countries, about 106 boys are born per 100 girls. Due to the higher mortality rate of young boys, the population is about balanced between men and women by the age of 21. This means that every 100 married women must also produce 116 boys, on the average, to maintain replacement rates.[19]
Therefore, every 100 married couples will need to produce 110 daughters and 116 sons for replacement rate, or a total of 2.26 children per family. Remember that this figure assumes that every married couple is fertile, and is therefore an average figure for all of the married couples in a country.
What effect does infertility have on this figure? According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, an incredible 47.4 percent of all American women are sterile.[3] Most of these are surgically sterilized after having an average of 1.99 children. Therefore, the fertile couples must make up for the shortfall in childbearing by these women before they are neutered. This means that every fertile couple that does not plan on one partner being sterilized must have
2.26 + (2.26-1.99) X (0.474/0.526) = 2.50
children in order for this country's population to remain stable.
The Effect of Abortion on Our Population Profile.
Introduction.
The most obvious effect of free-and-easy abortion is its impact upon the age distribution of a nation's population, as shown in Figures 46-5, 46-6, and 46-7. It is quite obvious that those countries that have most enthusiastically embraced abortion are now literally dying.
Reading Population Distribution Graphs.
Population distribution graphs simply show an age distribution by groups on the vertical axis and the number of persons in each group on the horizontal axis. These graphs are primarily visual aids, and population figures shown are necessarily approximate. Figures 46-5, 46-6, and 46-7 are examples of population distribution graphs.
The horizontal scale, which indicates the number of persons in each age group, is centered on each distribution bar as shown below. Therefore, the appropriate number on the scale must be multiplied by two in order to obtain the approximate number of persons in each age group.
The sample extract below shows that there are (2 X 7.0 million = 14 million) persons in the 0 to 5 age group on this population distribution graph.
GRAPH NOT AVAILABLE
FIGURE 48-5
TYPICAL POPULATION DISTRIBUTIONS
GRAPH NOT AVAILABLE
FIGURE 48-6
HISTORICAL AND PROJECTED UNITED STATES POPULATION DISTRIBUTIONS
GRAPH NOT AVAILABLE
Reference: Bureau of the Census, United States Department of Commerce. National Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1990 (110th Edition), 960 pages, $25.00. Table 1, "Population and Area: 1790 to 1980;" Table 12, "Total Population, By Sex, Race, and Age: 1988;" and Table 18, "Projections of the Total Population, By Age, Sex, and Race: 1989 to 2010."
FIGURE 48-7
UNITED STATES POPULATION DISTRIBUTION IN 1990
GRAPH NOT AVAILABLE
Reference: Bureau of the Census, United States Department of Commerce. National Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1990 (110th Edition), 960 pages, $25.00. Table 12, "Total Population, By Sex, Race, and Age: 1988."
Characteristic Population Distributions.
Almost every undeveloped country in history has experienced very high birth rates and a correspondingly high death rate. This produces a pyramid-shaped population distribution as shown in the upper right hand corner of Figure 46-5. Generally, such a country will have a stable population, with many young people and a relatively small aging population.
As the country develops, it will benefit from improved medical technology. More babies will survive their first year of life, and life spans in general will increase rapidly. This means that the population will increase dramatically and the slopes of the demographic pyramid will become steeper.
In a dying country, as shown in the lower half of Figure 46-5, people will have longer life spans but will practically cease having babies. The country will age rapidly, and more and more retired people will depend upon fewer and fewer younger workers for their support.
Historical United States Population Distributions.
The upper left-hand corner of Figure 46-6 shows that the United States was basically a developing country in 1900. Our population distribution was typically pyramidal in shape.
We have now been a part of the abortion culture for about two decades. The upper right-hand corner of Figure 46-6 shows that we now have stabilized our population and will shortly enter a sustained period of negative population growth (NPG). The current (1990) population distribution is expanded into more detail in Figure 46-7. Figure 46-8 shows a numerical breakout of historical and projected United States population distributions.
FIGURE 48-8
HISTORICAL AND PROJECTED AGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE UNITED STATES POPULATION, 1950 to 2020
Age Group Population in Percent
Age Group 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
0 to 4 12.7 11.3 8.4 7.2 6.6 6.3 6.0 5.5
5 to 13 18.5 18.2 17.9 13.7 11.9 9.8 9.2 8.3
14 to 21 11.1 11.5 15.0 14.7 12.8 11.1 10.3 9.2
22 to 29 8.5 9.7 11.6 14.3 15.1 14.7 12.5 10.0
30 to 39 14.8 13.5 11.1 14.0 14.3 13.8 13.1 12.0
40 to 54 18.0 17.9 17.2 15.2 15.0 15.1 14.7 14.0
55 to 64 8.0 8.7 9.0 9.6 11.0 12.8 14.8 17.7
65+ 8.4 9.2 9.8 11.3 13.3 16.4 19.4 23.3
Totals 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Median Age 30.2 29.4 27.9 30.0 34.8 37.8 40.2 43.1
Support Ratio * 18 21 22 23 26 29 32 35
Note: (*) 'Support ratio' is defined as the number of nonworkers of age 65 and over per 100 workers of ages 18-64.
Reference: Bureau of the Census, United States Department of Commerce. National Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1990 (110th Edition), 960 pages, $25.00. Table 13, "Total Population, By Age and Sex: 1960 to 1988;" and Table 18, "Projections of the Total Population by Age, Sex, and Race: 1989 to 2010."
Even though our country has reached zero population growth (ZPG), our total population is still growing. This is because of immigration and the lengthening of our life spans.
Notice that the post-World War II 'baby boom' and its smaller echo (the 'boomlet') have caused bulges in the population distribution. Notice also that we are now at the point where we are becoming an aging culture. If not for abortion, the United States would have a nearly 'ideal' population distribution, with an approximately equal number of citizens in each age group. However, we have tragically lost more than ten percent of our population to abortion. This large group of citizens that were never born is represented by the unshaded portion of Figure 46-7.
This means that we are now becoming an aging culture, due entirely to our contraception-abortion-sterilization mindset. The only reason that our country's population is increasing is that we are accepting more immigrants than any other country in the world. However, even immigration will not avert the eventual slow decline in population that signifies a dying country like Italy or West Germany. The projected United States population distributions for the years 2020 and 2050 are shown in the lower half of Figure 46-6.
It is also important to note that Black women are aborting at more than twice the rate of White women in this country. This means that, within a century, Blacks will represent less than half of their current population percentage. The ramifications of this drastic drop in representation are obvious.
Figures 46-3 and 46-4 show this drop in representation.
For more information on the racist nature and effects of abortion, see Chapter 78.
The Inevitable Death of the Pro-Abortion Movement.
One Redeeming Quality.
As far as pro-lifers are concerned, there is only one redeeming characteristic of the anti-life movement: It is obsessed with death its own death!
The pro-abortion movement is virtually sterile. Pro-aborts are slaughtering their own descendants for the sake of current convenience. In other words, the anti-life movement inevitably carries the (lack of) seeds of its own slow and agonizing destruction. It is literally aborting, contracepting, and sterilizing and euthanizing itself out of existence!
The only reason that the pro-aborts still have so much power in this country is that they have billions of dollars to spend on the social issues of their choice money that pro-lifers use to raise their children and contribute to their churches. Additionally, the Neoliberals have a stranglehold on the public school system, which teaches a pervasive anti-life mentality as described in Chapter 12 of Volume I.
Despite these variables, there will eventually be very few pro-aborts left. Meanwhile, pro-life families will continue to have many children, and will eventually dominate all aspects of society through sheer force of numbers.
Death of a Movement.
The table below shows how the pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia adherents are dying out. These figures are based upon complex calculations that take into account 14 demographic variables, including net immigration and immigrants' countries of origin, the influence of religion on attitudes, the rate of values transference from parents to children, fertility rates, average family sizes (studies show that the average pro-life family has 3.4 children and the average pro-abortion family has 1.3 children). This is naturally the most critical factor of all, followed in importance by the 'non-role' of the chronically indifferent segment of our population.
According to various polls taken by both "sides" in the abortion debate, the country was about evenly divided on the question of abortion in 1975 (for more information on these comprehensive polls, see Chapter 76, "Public Opinion Polls on Abortion").
Assuming that 1975 was the "base" year, with the public split 50/50 on abortion, the following sequence of events will take place (assuming abortion remains legal);
SUICIDE OF THE PRO-ABORTION MOVEMENT
1975: base year (50/50 split on abortion)
1990: public is 55% pro-life
2010: public is 60% pro-life
2035: abortions drop below 1 million per year
2040: public is 75% pro-life
2060: trend stabilized at about 80% pro-life
Notice that the trend accelerates with time until the midpoint of the study and then gradually slows down and stops. This classic "S" shape is due to the geometric influence of the abortion factor on a steadily decreasing pro-abortion population.
Theoretically, if these trends continued unabated, the last child born to a pro-abortion family would die approximately in the year 2175. But, of course, this type of continuous trend never 'plays out' in a situation involving vast numbers of people. Unpopular philosophies never really die out, because there will always be disaffected people who can't make it in the mainstream. These people tend to cluster around radical philosophies and keep them alive. Witness the White Supremacist/Nazi movement and the Satanists in the United States today. Pro-abortionists will inevitably occupy a similar niche at the end of the next century because of their lack of children.
Variable Factors.
Of course, the above exercise is by no means predictive in the strictest sense. Although all assumptions made favored the pro-abortion stance, there is really no reliable way to project trends (especially sociologic ones) more than 30 years into the future with any accuracy. We can be assured that there will always be pro-aborts, perhaps few in number, just as there will always be their spiritual ancestors the Nazis.
However, it is obvious that some portions of the above pattern are already being established in this country. For example, the national legal abortion ratio peaked several years ago and is now declining slowly. Also, attitude tracking polls (those whose questions remain the same year after year) show that the American public is slowly moving toward the pro-life position at the rate of about one percentage point per year. One such poll is shown in Chapter 76, "Public Opinion Polls on Abortion."
This trend is also reflected in voting. For example, Washington State became the first state whose citizens voted in abortion. Referendum #20 passed by a margin of 57% to 43% in 1970.
Twenty years later, in the wake of the United States Supreme Court's Webster decision, pro-aborts proposed Initiative #120, which was essentially identical in content to its predecessor. This referendum passed by a scant 50.1% to 49.9%.
Why did the pro-abortion margin shrink so drastically in two decades? Because, according to exit poll studies, the 'new generation' of pro-life children were beginning to vote, and their counterparts (children of pro-abortion parents) simply were outnumbered.
This is a trend that promises to accelerate in the future.
References: Demographic Effects of Abortion.
[1] Plutarch, remarking on the decline of Greek civilization. Pulibus (Volume 37), page 221. Also quoted in Colonel Robert de Marcellos. "Fertility and National Power." The Human Life Review, Winter 1981, pages 34 to 51.
[2] Katarina Runske. "Empty Hearts and Empty Homes." Feminism v. Mankind. Family Publications, Wicken, Milton Keynes, Britain, 1990. Page 23.
[3] Bureau of the Census, United States Department of Commerce. National Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1990 (110th Edition), 960 pages, softcover, hardcover. Printed by the United States Government Printing Office (GPO), and is available at government bookstores in all major cities. Issued annually, this 'abstract' contains every imaginable statistic about Americans that any researcher could ever hope for. This reference is not only essential for any demographic research, but is downright fun to read and will settle many bets.
[4] "Abortion Held Way to Avoid Tyrants." Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1970, part I, page 9.
[5] Peter J. Ferrara. "Rebuilding Social Security: Part I: The Crisis Continues." Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, Number 345, April 25, 1984, page 6.
[6] Louis S. Richman. "The Coming World Labor Shortage." Fortune Magazine, April 9, 1990, pages 70 to 77.
[7] Marlise Simons, New York Times News Service. "France Grows Older But No Wiser." The Oregonian, August 30, 1992, page A10.
[8] Stewart Powell. "Measuring Impact of the "Baby Bust" on U.S. Future." U.S. News and World Report, December 16, 1985, pages 66 and 67.
[9] Colonel Robert de Marcellus. "Fertility and National Power." Human Life Review, Winter 1981, pages 34 to 51.
[10] Janie Hampton. "Women at United Nations Conference Stage Heated Fight Over Abortion." The Oregonian, July 21, 1985.
[11] The Institut National d'Etudes Demographique (INED). "Short Fall in Births in Europe." From Population, the bi-quarterly review of the INED, July/September 1983. Percentages from 1982 to the present are exponentially extrapolated using the average percentage for the previous ten-year period (1973 to 1982).
[12] Father Paul Marx. Confessions of a Pro-Life Missionary. 1988, 353 pages, hardback, softback. Published by Human Life International (address and phone number given below). This is an excellent account of Father Marx' travels all over the world since the founding of HLI in 1981. It is a firsthand account of his battle against U.S. 'contraceptive imperialism,' International Planned Parenthood, and abortion in dozens of countries. Human Life International is the most complete source of information on the status of artificial birth control, abortion, and euthanasia in the world today. Their annual dues include 17 issues of the HLI newsletter, and an additional amount will purchase ten special reports, published about monthly. Father Paul Marx heads HLI. Their mailing address is Human Life International, 7845-E Airpark Road, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20879. Telephone: (301) 670-7884.
[13] "Soviets Pledge to Curb Birth Rate Among Non-Russian Minorities." ALL News, February 16, 1987, page 7.
[14] Seattle Times, Wednesday, January 4, 1984, page A5.
[15] "The College Pool Dwindles: New England Schools Resorting to Unfamiliar Measures to Attract Incoming Freshmen." The Boston Globe, June 16, 1990.
[16] Greg J. Duncan. Years of Poverty, Years of Plenty. Institute for Social Research, the University of Michigan. 1984, pages 77 and 90.
[17] Michael Weisskopf. "China's Birth Control Policy Drives Some to Kill Baby Girls." The Washington Post, January 8, 1985, page A1.
[18] "China's Population Policy is Proving to Be Effective." Beijing Review (English Edition), November 6-12, 1989, pages 42 to 44.
[19] Virginia Gager. "How Many Children is Enough?" Life and Family News, June 1987, page 5.
Further Reading: Demographic Effects of Abortion.
Bureau of the Census, United States Department of Commerce. National Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States.
1990 (110th Edition). 960 pages. This fascinating book is the best available source of up-to-date information on United States and world population statistics and characteristics. It is reissued in updated form each year.
Sidney and Daniel Callahan (editors). Abortion: Understanding Differences.
Plenum Press, 233 Sprill Street, New York, New York 10013. 1984, 338 pages. This book consists of a series of essays on various aspects of the abortion issue and a short rebuttal to each chapter written by a person on the opposite side of the issue. Authors include Kristin Luker, Mary Meehan, and Daniel and Sidney Callahan. Most of the chapters deal with issues that are seldom addressed in the abortion debate: Abortion and culture, abortion and its impacts on family and community, the role of children, and the importance of values.
Neil W. Chamberlain. Beyond Malthus: Population and Power.
New York: Basic Books. 1970, 214 pages. A treatise on the effects of population on government structures, businesses, and international relations. This book is more than two decades old, but its principles remain valid.
Professor Julian L. Simon. The Ultimate Resource.
Princeton University Press. 1982, 415 pages. Order from American Life League, Post Office Box 1350, Stafford, Virginia 22554. Reviewed by Jacqeline R. Kasun, Ph.D., on page 7 of the January 11, 1982 issue of National Right to Life News and by Robert L. Sassone, Ph.D., on page 19 of the February 1983 issue of ALL About Issues. The author thoroughly debunks the antinatalist propaganda that tells the public that the world is overpopulated. Sections include: The current resource situation, population growth and its impacts upon future resource distribution, and the story behind all of the numbers.
United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970.
Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. Two Volumes, 1,230 pages, hardback. House Document Number 93-78. Detailed information on 26 major categories of United States demography, as follows: Population; vital statistics and health and medical care; migration; labor; prices and price indexes; national income and wealth; consumer income and expenditures; social statistics; land, water and climate; agriculture; forestry and fisheries; minerals; construction and housing; manufacturing; transportation; communication; energy; distribution and services; international transactions and foreign commerce; business enterprise; productivity and technological development; financial markets and institutions; government; and colonial and pre-Federal statistics.
Ben J. Wattenberg. The Birth Dearth.
New York: Pharos Books, 1987. 182 pages. Reviewed by Rupert J. Ederer in the April 1988 Fidelity Magazine. This is a very interesting book. The author is a secularist with an extensive professional background in demographics. He is concerned that, one of these days, we Westerners will be inundated with "babies of color" from the less-developed nations because of their high birth rate. Therefore, he implies, we in the developed nations should get to work and produce as many babies as possible to fend off losing our Western identity. Alternatively, of course, we could flood the rest of the world with abortion and contraception techniques, so that their birthrates could be as racially suicidal as ours. This important book exposes the racist roots of the antinatalist movement and its obsession with differential fertility. Of course, the author cannot eschew abortion, artificial contraception, and sex education, which obviously brought about the problem in the first place! Some of the book is useful to Christians, such as the effects of the "one-child" on only children, and the social and economic effects of the "greying" of America.
© American Life League BBS — 1-703-659-7111
This is a chapter of the Pro-Life Activist’s Encyclopedia published by American Life League.
