Thursday, October 15, 2009

Let's Get Down to Brass Tacks as My Father Said

No Candy Coating - Abortion is The Taking of an Innocent Life

The key issue in our society, in my mind, facing all people of good will is the senseless murder of unborn children around the world. Recessions will come and go, and there may be a certain morality to the causes and effects of such events. Cataclysmic events also occur around the world that require our attention. And though there are serious issues around all areas of human sexuality, the greatest affront to our dignity as human beings is our failure to protect unborn children in the womb from death, chosen for them by their parents in a world that is telling them that it is OK to do this.

Here are some abortion facts that I found on the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform site, a California based organisation "working to establish prenatal justice and the right to life for the unborn, the disabled, the infirm, the aged and all vulnerable peoples through education and the development of cutting edge educational resources." Most of these facts are American, so cut them in 10 to get a Canadian perspective. The world wide numbers are SHOCKING:

Abortion Statistics

The following is a list of useful abortion statistics as well as some facts on abortifacients. All abortion numbers are derived from pro-abortion sources courtesy of The Alan Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood's Family Planning Perspectives.

Click here for the Guttmacher Institute's latest fact sheet on abortion.

WORLDWIDE

Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million
Number of abortions per day:
Approximately 115,000

Where abortions occur:
83% of all abortions are obtained in developing countries and 17% occur in developed countries.

© Copyright 1996-2008, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)

UNITED STATES

Number of abortions per year: 1.37 Million (1996)
Number of abortions per day:
Approximately 3,700

Who's having abortions (age)?
52% of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 32% of all abortions; Teenagers obtain 20% and girls under 15 account for 1.2%.

Who's having abortions (race)?
While white women obtain 60% of all abortions, their abortion rate is well below that of minority women. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely.

Who's having abortions (marital status)?
64.4% of all abortions are performed on never-married women; Married women account for 18.4% of all abortions and divorced women obtain 9.4%.

Who's having abortions (religion)?
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".

Who's having abortions (income)?
Women with family incomes less than $15,000 obtain 28.7% of all abortions; Women with family incomes between $15,000 and $29,999 obtain 19.5%; Women with family incomes between $30,000 and $59,999 obtain 38.0%; Women with family incomes over $60,000 obtain 13.8%.

Why women have abortions
1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).

At what gestational ages are abortions performed:
52% of all abortions occur before the 9th week of pregnancy, 25% happen between the 9th & 10th week, 12% happen between the 11th and 12th week, 6% happen between the 13th & 15th week, 4% happen between the 16th & 20th week, and 1% of all abortions (16,450/yr.) happen after the 20th week of pregnancy.

Likelihood of abortion:
An estimated 43% of all women will have at least 1 abortion by the time they are 45 years old. 47% of all abortions are performed on women who have had at least one previous abortion.

Abortion coverage:
48% of all abortion facilities provide services after the 12th week of pregnancy. 9 in 10 managed care plans routinely cover abortion or provide limited coverage. About 14% of all abortions in the United States are paid for with public funds, virtually all of which are state funds. 16 states (CA, CT, HI, ED, IL, MA , MD, MD, MN, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA and WV) pay for abortions for some poor women.

But, there are some Canadian statistics available, though they are unreliable as you will see below. They came courtesy of an article in LifeSiteNews here, and Stats Canada. The statistics that became available in the summer of 2009 were for year 2002-2006, and were inaccurate and therefor not really dependable.


Induced abortions by province and territory of report
(Hospitals and clinics)

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Hospitals and clinics1

number of induced abortions
Total2,3,4 105,535 104,248 100,763 97,254 91,377E
Canada2,3,5,6 105,383 104,099 100,763 97,254 91,377E
Newfoundland and Labrador 798 880 901 877 894
Nova Scotia 1,996 2,064 1,936 1,944 2,082
New Brunswick8 1,062 991 1,042 1,032 F
Quebec 30,841 30,780 30,588 29,231 29,105
Ontario 38,109 36,654 35,238 33,609 33,202
Manitoba9 3,441 3,882 2,752 2,363 F
Saskatchewan 1,729 1,755 1,806 1,723 1,741
Alberta 10,962 11,027 11,283 11,040 11,936
British Columbia10 16,076 15,669 14,738 14,927 F
Yukon 131 131 x 125 131
Northwest Territories 238 266 270 x 271
Nunavut7 .. .. x x 118
Reported by American states3,4 152 149 .. .. ..

x : suppressed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the Statistics Act
E : use with caution.
F : too unreliable to be published.
.. : not available for a specific period of time.
Notes:
- Data users should be aware of certain important limitations to the Therapeutic Abortion Survey. The data represent induced abortions performed only in hospitals and clinics in Canada; all other types of abortions are not within the scope of the survey. The extent to which the number of hospital and clinic abortions collected by the Therapeutic Abortions Survey corresponds to the total number of medically induced abortions performed is unknown. Since 2003, no information is collected on Canadian residents who obtain an abortion outside of Canada. Under coverage issues exist within the survey in that some such cases, data for an entire domain of interest such as a province cannot be estimated and is suppressed due to a deficiency in accuracy (refer to footnotes 8,9 and 10 addressing coverage). Furthermore, submission of aggregate counts by some respondents instead of detailed records results in the estimations of the age distribution for those respondents.
- Because of the significant under coverage of medically induced abortions in clinics in 2006 due to non response in some provinces, caution should be exercised when using the "clinics" and "hospitals and clinics" totals at the Canada level.
1. The number of induced abortions is provided by the province or territory in which the abortion was performed. Counts include abortions performed in Canadian hospitals and clinics on Canadian residents and non-residents of Canada. Where indicated the counts also include abortions performed in the United States on Canadian residents, for data years prior to 2004.
2. Induced abortion is defined as the medical termination of pregnancy. Equivalent terms include: artificial abortion, therapeutic abortion, voluntary termination of pregnancy, elective termination of pregnancy and active termination of pregnancy. Only counts of legally induced abortions are included.
3. From 1971 to 2003, health departments in several American states, especially those along the Canada and United States border supplied information about abortions obtained by Canadian residents. These counts, however, should be regarded as a minimum estimate because not all American states submitted reports, some private clinics may not report to the state health department or the residence of the patient was not reported. The reports did not specify if the abortion took place in a hospital or clinic. As of 2004, this information is no longer collected.
4. Abortions performed on Canadian residents in the United States are included only at the combined hospital and clinic level, for data years prior to 2004.
5. As of 1983, Prince Edward Island no longer reports hospital abortions to the Therapeutic Abortion Survey.
6. There are no clinics in Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Northwest Territories or Nunavut (and as of 2004, there are no clinics in Nova Scotia). Thus, no clinic data are reported for these jurisdictions.
7. For 2002 and 2003, Nunavut residents are excluded due to incomplete reporting.
8. In 2006, information on abortions performed in clinics in New Brunswick was not submitted to the Therapeutic Abortion Survey. In 2005, induced abortions performed in New Brunswick clinics not only accounted for just over 57% of all medically induced abortions in the province, but also, for Prince Edward Island residents, they represented 56% of all abortions, and 100% of those done in clinics.
9. Beginning in 2004, information on abortions performed in clinics in Manitoba was not submitted to the Therapeutic Abortion Survey; in 2003, they accounted for about 21% of all medically induced abortions in the province. Since 2004, the statistics for hospitals and clinics combined include only hospital abortions.
10. In British Columbia, for the 2003 data year, a clinic did not report to the Therapeutic Abortion Survey, and for 2005, another clinic did not respond to the survey. For each of these years, counts were estimated for the non-reporting clinic based on the number of abortions that is reported in previous years. In 2006, two out of the four British Columbia clinics did not report to the Therapeutic Abortion Survey, resulting in a significant under-counting of abortions conducted in clinics in the province. In 2005, these two clinics accounted for 61.9% of the total number of abortions performed in clinics in British Columbia.
Sources: Canadian Institute for Health Information and Statistics Canada, CANSIM, table 106-9005.
Last modified: 2009-09-11.

Why are we not more disturbed by this, and led to action? 'Splain me Lucy.

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