Res Publica 2005

Almost 25 percent of all pregancies in America are aborted.

The fallacy of safe, legal and rare, or that abortions are done for health reasons or for tragedies like rape and incest isn't really the picture. The real reason we kill our unwanted unborn is because we find them an inconvenience.

Lives are snuffed out because someone says "I'm not ready for this."

Lives are taken because someone, a parent, a mom, a father says "I can't deal with it."

We scream bloody murder when we hear of honor killings. But the only real difference here is the age of the victim. It's still a victim that some deem doesn't have a right to live.

Women who have had abortions cite the following reasons:
21% can't afford a baby
21% are unready for responsibility
16% concerned about how having a baby could change their lives
12% have problems with relationship or want to avoid single parenthood
11% are not mature enough/are too young to have children
8% have all the children they want/have all grown-up children
3% possible fetal health problem
3% maternal health problem
1% pregnancy resulted from rape or incest
1% husband/partner wants them to have abortion
1% don't want others to know they had sex or are pregnant

Notes:

1. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries" Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 24 (August 1998).
2. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "U.S. Women Who Obtain Abortions: Who and Why?" Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 4, (July/August 1988)

Source of statistics: Second Look Project