Beginning in 1968, while campaigning to repeal all state abortion laws, a prominent abortionist named Bernard Nathanson fabricated statistics and made up false stories to advance his cause. His aim was to frame the abortion debate to make it seem like compassion positively demanded legalization.

Nathanson and his team at the National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws (it lives on today as NARAL) made up the statistic that there were 1 million illegal abortions in the United States annually. Nathanson knew this was more than 10 times the real figure, but he wanted to make the situation seem dire.