Recent findings from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reporting agency associated with Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, brought astonishing news. Its most current statistics show that annual abortions have reached their lowest numbers since Roe v. Wade.
Guttmacher reported that in 2017, abortions in America numbered 862,000 — a 7% decline since 2014. The study reported more than 1 million abortions in 2011 and stated that in 2017 there were 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women ages 19-44 — the lowest since 1973.
The number of annual abortions had reached a high in 1990 when Guttmacher estimated 1.6 million abortions. A decrease by nearly half over this 28-year period is remarkable.
Prominent in achieving this reduction is the work of over 2,500 pro-life pregnancy resource centers and medical clinics. Such agencies offer critical services, free of charge, to mothers considering abortion, empowering them to choose life.
Ongoing support and friendship, material assistance, referrals for medical and legal help, housing, referrals for adoption, and other such services provide a firm foundation of support for these women during this time of uncertainty and save the taxpayers money. A critical study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that the work of these life-affirming agencies saved taxpayers $161 million in 2017.
Over 1,500 of these agencies operate as medical clinics providing key medical services. Chief among these is a medical diagnosis of pregnancy through ultrasound. This medical diagnostic tool confirms pregnancy and allows a mother to see the reality of her human infant in utero. Pregnancy medical clinics are reporting that once given that opportunity, 80-90% of such mothers choose life and not abortion.
This is not surprising. As early as 1983, an anecdotal study in the New England Journal of Medicine noticed the correlation between a mother seeing an image of her unborn child via ultrasound and her rejection of abortion.
The article, entitled “Maternal Bonding in Early Fetal Ultrasound Examinations,” sought to determine if viewing an ultrasound image influenced a mother to reject abortion. The researchers observed:
Medical pro-life pregnancy centers have reported similar results for years. They further report that a mother’s simply viewing the beating heart of her unborn infant at the very earliest stages of pregnancy confirms the humanity of this child, and tends to result in the choice of life.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority asserted, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” But today, that question is no longer difficult, thanks to scientific advances in the medical field. The use of ultrasound confirms the child’s humanity. It further shows a mother that she is pregnant with a living human infant and allows her to see her child’s beating heart. This dramatically works in favor of life and a rejection of abortion.
How is this reality playing out today in the political arena? Currently, nine states have passed bills that prohibit abortions after the time in pregnancy when a physician can detect a fetal heartbeat. Both sides of the abortion issue agree that such bills will effectively ban abortion because women do not learn they are pregnant until after this time has elapsed. It is expected that such laws, which are now being challenged in federal court, will eventually be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
In this current term, the Supreme Court will also consider the constitutional validity of an Indiana law that mandates a mother considering abortion be given an opportunity to view her infant on an ultrasound screen.
What will the Supreme Court do with such laws? If ultrasound proves there is human life in the womb (and it does), the Court can no longer hide behind the idea that nobody knows when human life begins. This alone should be grounds to overturn Roe v. Wade. If, however, the Court refuses to do so, it still could uphold the constitutionality of these “heartbeat” laws and, in so doing, allow states to ban abortion even as Roe remains on the books.
The issue of abortion has torn our nation apart like no issue since slavery. It remains at the forefront of our cultural divide. The upcoming presidential election determining who will appoint justices to the Supreme Court will have a major impact on the outcome of this intense cultural war.
For now, however, it does appear that the end to abortion is only a heartbeat away.
Thomas A. Glessner, an attorney, is the president and founder of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. NIFLA recently won a Supreme Court case dealing with the free speech rights of pro-life pregnancy centers in NIFLA v. Becerra.
