USA Legal Abortion Total Since 1973

Abortion Stats for MN & AL

UK: Abortion Numbers Continue to Rise

British Survey Finds Overwhelming Majority of Women Regret Abortions

Health Regulations Convince OH Abortionist to Quit / PA Abortionist Loses License

Australian Abortionist Won't Fight / The Australian Abortion Combo

FL Abortion Site Where Baby Born Alive Awaiting Charges

Rape & Incest Victims Don't Want Abortion, Say It Does Not Help Women

Abortions on Down Syndrome Babies Still as High as 85% 

President's Council on Bioethics Concerned About Abortions on Disabled Babies

Abortion & Future Pregnancy

Leading UN Official: UN Pressures Countries to Support Abortion

New Website Lists Thousands of Violent Acts by Abortion Supporters  

US LEGAL ABORTION TOTAL SINCE 1973, according to AGI (Alan Guttmacher Inst of PP) has surpassed 47 Million, with 1,293,000 abortions reported in 2002 (last report year). AGI numbers are always above (12%-20%) total reported by CDC, because CDC numbers are voluntarily reported while AGI actively collects reports. [Cincinnati Rt to Life, 4/06]

MN ABORTIONS DECLINE 3% IN 2005 - Lowest Level Since 1975. [MN DOH] There were 13,362 abortions in 2005 (13,791 in 2004). Scott Fischbach [dir, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life] credits the passage of pro-life laws for the decrease. The Woman's Right to Know law had been in place for 2 years. [1July06, LifeNews.com]

AL 2005 ABORTION NUMBERS REMAIN HIGH. With 10 licensed abortion centers, 11,211 abortions were recorded (4788 White, 6127 Black, 296 Other/Not Stated; 802 Teens aged 12-17; 9670 not married). [ADPH, ACHS, 9/06]

ILLINOIS PRO-LIFE GROUPS WANT COURT TO ENFORCE ABORTION LAW HELPING TEENS. A debate in -Illinois confronts an age-old problem high school students learn about in civics class. When a law is passed, the judicial branch is supposed to interpret it -- but that's not happening with a measure designed to help parents help their teenager daughters avoid abortions. In 1995, the Illinois legislature passed a law that a parent or guardian should be notified 48 hours in advance of an abortion on a minor teen. But the Illinois Supreme Court has refused to write rules that the law requires for an appeals process and, as a result, the law can't go into effect. The high court is the only state court in the country not to write the companion rules. As a result, Illinois has become a haven for abortions on teenagers in other states and was one of the reasons Congressional lawmakers put forward a bill that would stop adults from taking teenagers out of state for secret abortions. Pro-life advocates want to get the law on the books and several groups, are submitting a petition to the court to get it to write the rules. DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett filed a petition last June to Chief Justice Robert Thomas and his colleagues asking for the court to issue the rules. Now, pro-life attorneys Tom Brejcha and Paul Linton, for the organizations, have issued a supplemental petition. [LifeNews.com, 14Sept06]

BRITISH SURVEY FINDS OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF WOMEN REGRETTED ABORTIONS. A British pro-life group placed advertisements in six women's magazines there to gather the experiences of women who had abortions and find out their reaction to their decision years down the road. More than 82 percent of the women who responded indicated they deeply regretted their abortion decisions. Some 248 women replied to the ads sponsored by the group LIFE between April and early July.

Just 26 said they had a few or no regrets about their abortions, including one 74 year-old woman who had three abortions in the 1960s and 70s and another who had aborted twins. Of that small group of women, they indicated they had no other alternative than the abortion or said it was the "right thing" at that moment in their lives. Still, many said they would not want to do it again. Nine other women said they were undecided about their abortion experiences.

However, 204 of the 248 women said they deeply regretted their abortions. LIFE asked 96 women in a follow-up survey whether they would have gone through with the abortion had they known the medical and emotional problems abortions can cause. Sixty-four of the women answered no and most very emphatically. Virtually all of the women said that women considering abortions should be given more information on potential problems. Most said they were only told there would be an inordinate amount of bleeding but were given little or no counseling or information. [LifeNews.com, 13Sept06 http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51925]

RULES CONVINCE OH ABORTIONIST TO QUIT: Officials reject license renewal request after state regulators uncovered more than a dozen health code violations, including a serious situation that endangered the life of a patient. The East Side Cleveland business that performed second-trimester abortions is closing down. The Ohio Department of Health concluded, in an in-depth report on the Center for Women's Health, that the business failed to have agreements with area hospitals for patients to be admitted in case of serious complications [Plain Dealer].

The state report said the clinic had difficulty finding a hospital willing to admit a patient with such complications during a second-trimester abortion, in what appeared to be the most serious infraction. The closure, just the latest in a long list of abortion business closures over run-ins with rules in recent weeks, actually will happen soon, because officials have cited the problems in rejecting the business's request for a new license. A wide range of other routine care requirements also were not met, the state agency concluded.

Cheryl Sullenger, [spokeswoman, Operation Rescue] told WND that these situations are developing more and more: "The more they're inspected, the more stuff we'll find," she said. Sullenger said for many years such businesses have fallen under no oversight, and as states impose rules on such facilities, the abortionists are unable to deal with it.

The Center had been licensed as an ambulatory surgical care facility since 2000, when it obtained the license under an order from the state, but later let it lapse. Dr. Martin Ruddock, who runs the business, believes it is a private medical practice and it should not be regulated by the state. Nearly a dozen other abortion businesses in Ohio, California, Alabama and Florida also have been closed recently over similar issues, such as workers without medical licenses performing medical procedures, the misuse of drugs and others; some of these have reopened following compliance with rules. Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said the implementation of standards for medical facilities is effective at stopping the abortion industry. "Standards are useful tools that are putting abortionist sites out of business," Newman said. "As a result, our land is ...a safer place for women..."

In a report by Carrie Gordon Earll, the senior policy analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family, Ruddock had confirmed that many of the late-term abortions he performed were on unborn children and mothers who were healthy.  A business in Hialeah, Fla., where an investigation continues into allegations a baby was born alive, then killed and placed on the roof of the building to avoid detection by police, was shut down. Family Planning Center in Daytona Beach, FL, will no longer provide abortions because abortionist Randall Whitney said he didn't want to meet the required rules. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported Whitney describes himself as a "modified Christian" who isn't concerned over the up to 1,500 abortions he performs annually.

"I sleep well," Whitney told the newspaper. "I have no concerns about what might have been if a fetus lived." Whitney also works part-time for abortionist James Pendergraft, whose medical license was suspended last month because of allegations he performed illegal late-term abortions and was prescribing medication without the proper Drug Enforcement Administration certification. "Whitney's arrogant attitude about complying with regulations is increasingly typical in the abortion industry," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "This story reaffirms that our country faces a crisis of abortion clinics that operate as if they are above the law at the cost of innocent lives." [5Sept06, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?; 12Sept06, WorldNetDaily.com, http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51925; N Valko RN]

ABORTIONS ON DOWN SYNDROME BABIES STILL HIGH, MAYBE 85 PERCENT. Abortions on babies with Down syndrome are still high and estimates show that as many as 85 percent of babies with the condition are victims of abortion. "To me it's scary," Andrew Imparato, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of People with Disabilities, told the Tennessean newspaper. "It's like trying to create a master race." Dr. Karen Summar, a pediatrician at the Vanderbilt children's hospital's Down syndrome clinic says she also thinks that more women are probably having abortions when tests show the baby has the condition. Still, she thinks more data is needed to prove it. Research shows only about half the expected number of babies with Down syndrome were born in 2001. The study in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found a nationwide decline in Down syndrome births, even as more women are giving birth later in life, which greatly increases the risk of Down syndrome. [4Sept06, LifeNews.com, TN]

AUSTRALIA ABORTION PRACTITIONER WON'T FIGHT NEW COMPLAINTS. Suman Sood, recently convicted by a court for illegally giving a woman an abortion drug late in pregnancy, won't fight new complaints against her filed by women who say she gave them substandard medical care. Several new complaints have been filed with officials over the way Suman Sood handled abortions done on various women. The New South Wales (NSW) Medical Tribunal will soon hold a hearing on the complaints but Sood won't contest them. Some 11 women who received abortion or other medical care from her since 1998 filed the complaints. "I have decided not to contest the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) at the medical tribunal proceedings," Sood said. "I have accepted my counsel Mr Phillip Boulten and Mr Michael Fordham's advice that it is inappropriate for me to comment on the particulars in the HCCC case whilst the criminal proceedings are continuing," she said. In the illegal abortion case, Sood failed to conduct a medical examination on a patient she gave a dangerous abortion drug to that resulted in a botched abortion. The woman gave birth to a premature baby boy in the toilet in her bathroom at home and by the time paramedics could rush the infant to the hospital, he was dead. Sood was convicted and a court hearing for the sentencing is expected this week. She could be jailed for as much as 10 years as a result. [12Sept06, LifeNews.com]

UK: RISING NUMBER OF ABORTIONS CONFIRM NEED TO CHANGE 1967 LAW. A Department of Health (DOH) 4July06 report for 2005 on abortion in England and Wales indicates the abortion rate rose by 0.4%, up from 186,416, compared with 185,700 a year earlier, and confirms a growing awareness in Parliament that it needs to revisit the 1967 Abortion Act in order to address the rise of abortions throughout the United Kingdom.

Last year 7,937 abortions were carried out for non-residents of England and Wales, comprised mostly of women from Ireland, bringing the final tally of abortions in Great Britain to 194,353 for 2005. Scotland also experienced 12,603 abortions in 2005 according to a separate BBC report, a record number of abortions since the practice was legalized throughout the UK in 1967.

However the 2005 data also that 1,083 abortions were performed on girls 14 and younger, a figure that has outraged John Smeaton, the national director of the Society for the Protection for Unborn Children (SPUC). "It is shameful that the government should promote secret abortions for girls under the age of consent and insist that their parents aren't told," said Smeaton, who pointed out that the DOH wrongly tells UK doctors that the law of confidentiality is the same for all regardless whether the minor’s age is under 16.

Official figures also reveal that 1,900 abortions were performed under the eugenic "ground E", which permits abortion if doctors detect that the child would be born handicapped or disfigured. 22% of these “ground-E” cases were babies aborted with Down syndrome.

During the 2003-2005 period, 32% of women undergoing abortions had one or more previous abortions, a statistic that has risen from about 28% since 1995. "The high percentage of abortions -- 66% -- within the first nine weeks of pregnancy is clear evidence, if any were needed, that abortion is provided on demand in the UK," said Julia Millington of the UK’s ProLife Alliance in a press release July 4, who noted that abortion has become little more than a method of contraception in the UK.

The latest data on abortion has encouraged British politicians to re-open the debate on the 1967 Abortion Act, which was last amended in 1990, placing the restriction on abortion at 24 weeks, the estimated point at which an infant is able live outside the womb. The increasing rates of abortion in the UK have revealed that the government’s millions of pounds spent on sex education programs and massive availability of contraceptives have contributed to the rise of abortion, instead of accomplishing their purported aim to reduce it.
According to a July 3 BBC report, more than 60 British members of Parliament’s House of Commons have signed onto a motion requesting a review of the abortion law, and this review has also garnered the support of Lord David Steel, the original architect of the 1967 law. However, current proposals to limit abortion to 20-22 weeks may affect only 1% of British abortions, since the vast majority of abortions occur before the baby reaches 13 weeks gestation. Only 124 abortions were performed at 24 weeks gestation in 2004. Nevertheless, pro-life organizations and leaders are hailing any advance towards re-igniting the abortion debate in the kingdom.

Blair has been trying to avoid making the debate an election issue. Murphy-O’Connor: “Abortion is the wrong answer to fear and insecurity. As a society we need to look at ways of supporting women who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy...People know, perhaps instinctively, that the goodness of a society is known not by its wealth but by the way which it treats the most vulnerable of human beings, the ones with little or no claim on public attention." According to LIFE [UK pro-life charity] there hav