(3) abortion = no chance at all!
Even if a child is unwanted and battered and lives a miserable life, at least he or she has a chance to improve his or her life after leaving home. Anyone who asserts that the battered child would rather die than be abused is supremely arrogant.
After all, everyone knows the stories of people who have overcome the most extreme adversity to find happiness. Those who believe that children would rather be aborted than abused have obviously never spoken to adults who were abused as children.
This can be a good point for a pro-life debater to make before an audience. The pro-lifer might ask those people in the audience who were abused to raise their hands, and then ask those who would rather have died at the hands of an abortionist to stand up and explain why.
There never seem to be any takers for this offer.
If a child's life is snuffed out before birth, he or she has no chance at all. Is this not the essence of hope the opportunity to improve one's lot in life?
(4) abortion leads to infanticide.
Since our society now holds that there is such a thing as an 'unwanted child' in the womb, this attitude has inevitably spread to born children. Witness the 2,000 cases of infanticide committed every year in our country, with the full approval of the state. And, now that parents have been infected with the 'unwanted child' attitude, it is absolutely inevitable that child abuse will continue to escalate out of control.
Child abuse: accelerating out of control.
Figures 41-3 and 41-4 show both the annual number of children killed by abuse and the annual number of reported cases of child abuse in this country. These cases are increasing dramatically each year, and this trend shows no indication of slowing down.
This data is conclusive proof that freely available abortion has not cut down on the rate of child abuse at all; the effect has been precisely the opposite.
The increase of child abuse in the united states, 1972-1990
reported
.Reported..Abuse cases
.Rate increase
deaths due ..Cases
per 1,000
.Over previous
year
.To abuse
.Of abuse
population
.
1972
356
. 427,100
... 2.05
1973
.386
. 452,800
2.16
5%
1974
401
.. 480,100
2.26
. 5%
1975
... 448
. 509,000
2.38
. 5%
1976
485
537,700
2.48
. 4%
1977
496
. 572,100
2.61
.5%
1978
.595
. 606,600
.2.73
..5%
1979
.579
..707,400
3.16
.16%
1980
622
..785,100
.3.46
. 9%
1981
.677
. 846,200
3.70
.
7%
1982
.714
.. 924,100
4.01
8%
1983
.807
1,001,400
.4.31
..7%
1984
.820
1,255,600
.5.43
...26
%
1985
899
1,499,400
6.50
.. 20%
1986
.1,181
.1,673,400
. 7.28
12%
1987
.1,163
2,025,200
8.43
.. 16%
1988
.1,225
..2,298,100
9.62
14
%
1989
.1,332
..2,607,800
..10.42
..8%
1990
.1,448
..2,959,100
..11.59
11%
conclusions.
(1) the rate of reported child abuse in the united states, adjusted for population, has increased by an average of 10 percent each year since 1972 six times faster than population growth.
(2) the child abuse rate in the united states is now almost six times higher than it was in 1972, the year before the supreme court's roe v. Wade decision.
(3) more than four times as many children die of child abuse annually now in this country than did in 1972, the year before roe v. Wade.
Reference.
United states department of commerce, bureau of the census. Reference data book and guide to sources, statistical abstract of the united states. Washington, dc: united states government printing office. 1990 (110th edition). Table 296, "reported child neglect and abuse cases, by division: 1980 to 1987." table 297, "child maltreatment cases reported summary: 1976 to 1988."