If you walked along Sheridan Road today, you probably noticed hundreds of tiny American flags lining the sidewalk, with signs declaring that there are 3,700 abortions each day. Today is the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, as the signs also note. In today’s Daily, two students from Northwestern Students for Life, the group that put up the flags and signs, make the case that fetuses deserve protection. So are there really that many abortions in the United States?
Just about. Nationally, there are about 1.3 million abortions each year, which works out to 3,562 abortions each day, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. That number was based on this report. The New York Times cites a similar figure.
That’s down from a high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990.
The annual, creepily-titled “Abortion Surveillance” study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports fewer abortions in recent years — 848,163 in 2003. But three states declined to provide their numbers to the CDC: New Hampshire, West Virginia and California. In California alone, there was an estimated 236,000 abortions in 2000, which would help would explain why the CDC’s numbers are so low in comparison.