As Texas Right to Life previously reported, abortion is the leading cause of death in the United States. With more than 61 million preborn babies killed in the first 47 years of legal elective abortion, researchers have demonstrated that yearly abortions far surpass even cancer and heart disease as causes of death in the United States.
This trend, reported on by researchers at the University of North Carolina, is not unique to the United States and can be found looking at global statistics. As we begin a new year, Breitbart reported that even amid the ongoing global pandemic, abortion was the leading cause of death worldwide in 2020. Using information compiled by Worldometer, reporters found the number of global abortions far exceeded deaths from COVID-19 and, in fact, many other causes of death around the world combined.
Worldometer is a free online resource, which Breitbart notes was voted one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA). The site compiles data from several sources to provide a running tally of total worldwide population, births, deaths, cars manufactured, books printed, and CO2 emissions. Using validated data from more than 5,000 sources, Worldometer breaks down deaths by category and provides insight on global health and mortality.
In 2020, for example, 8.2 million people died from cancer, 5 million from smoking, and 1.7 million of HIV/AIDS. Worldometer also tracks the number of abortions that occur globally using statistics from the World Health Organization. In 2020, researchers estimate there were a staggering 42.7 million abortions around the world. Each abortion represents the violent destruction of at least one preborn life, an innocent child with a beating heart who was dismembered or deprived of nutrients to the point of death.
The scale of the abortion carnage cannot be overstated. As Breitbart notes, “Globally, there were more deaths from abortion in 2020 than all deaths from cancer, malaria, HIV/AIDS, smoking, alcohol, and traffic accidents combined, according to Worldometer statistics.” As other researchers have demonstrated, abortion is not listed as a cause of death, so making this comparison is not obvious. Because the child in the womb has not yet been born, statisticians do not consider the person living in the full sense and thus not a statistic of life lost. However, Pro-Lifers are making progress with the argument that the child in the womb is a member of the human family and deserving of Life and protection.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has a death toll approaching two million globally, has led to a wide-ranging lockdowns and draconian government responses. In the United States, more than 369,000 people have reportedly died of COVID-19. What is even more shocking than the number of COVID-19 is the fact that each year almost twice that number of preborn babies are killed in abortion. In 2018, 614,820 were reported, a figure that does not include all of the abortions in the United States.
What is more, the abortion industry used the pandemic as an opportunity to expand telemedicine abortions. These dangerous at-home, “DIY” abortions are a lucrative opportunity for the abortion industry and will potentially lead to an even greater loss of life.
Ironically, the governor of one of the most anti-Life states, New York, argued for some of the strictest measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 (all while endangering the most vulnerable New Yorkers in nursing homes and extended care facilities). His justification for all these measures was that if we could “save just one life” we should pursue the most extreme measures.
All the while, not a single abortion is necessary, and alternatives to abortion allow mothers and families to choose Life. Each year, more lives are lost to abortion than any other cause of death. Even in 2020, a year of tremendous tumult amidst a global pandemic, abortion remained the leading cause of death in the world.