Counting the Cost of Abortion

Counting the Cost of Abortion

(A look at the little-know and corrosive effects has had on American life.)

by Raul Acosta

More than 23 years have passed since legalized abortion-on-demand national wide, end the time to ask what abortion has cost the United States economically, socially and morally is long overdue.

Two recently published books do just that. "The Cost of Abortion" (Four Winds, $7), by Lawrence F. Roberge, and "Lime 5: Exploited by Choice" (Life Dynamics, $20), by Mark Crutcher, demonstrate that abortion has and will continue to cost the American people dearly.

And since the total number of abortions performed since 1973-when the Supreme Court legalized the procedure -is far higher than anyone has documented, the projected effects of abortion will be far worse than either book could estimate.

From below-replacement levels of population to increased post- abortion infertility and sterilization, a lower Gross Domestic Product output, as well as the potential threat of invasion due to weakened armed forces, Roberge shows the actual and scientifically projected costs of abortion.

As abortions increased, for instance, fertility rates dropped. "The total U.S. fertility rate from 1973-1989 has been below the critical population-replacement level of 2.1 births per woman," Roberge writes.

Adoption has decreased as well, and even after factoring in immigration, a net decline remains.

With the brush of dispassionate statistics, Roberge repeatedly paints the "accumulative effects" of abortion, from lower student enrollment and teacher employment to the lower amount of school supplies produced and sold.

Ironically, the National Education Association is speeding its own decline by supporting the abortion of its future pupils, notes Roberge, a biomedical scientist and consultant.

But in the end, abortion harms not only certain segments of the population, but every U.S. citizen.

"Aborted lives would have contributed to federal revenues via labor performed, resulting in payment of income taxes and social security," he writes.

Each aborted life also would have consumed federal revenue, Roberge adds, but this "might be offset by the tax income generated by goods and services purchased," as well as unemployment insurance and business taxes collected by businesses employing these lost lives.

Also, the missing generations of children, the so-called ghost population, will be noticed more in the future.

"As federal taxation levels increase . . . more tax revenue is collected from the aborted lives," Roberge writes. "The cumulative effect of these lost lives will be increasingly felt as the U.S. enters the 21st century."

At what cost?

And what of the social cost? In "Lime 5," which takes its title from the "name" one woman was given to use while in an abortion clinic, Crutcher scrutinizes the personal toll the abortion industry has taken on those it affects directly-the woman and her abortionist.

Crutcher, founder and president of Life Dynamics, Inc., which gives legal support to women injured by abortion, documents how unsafe the procedure actually is.

Citing public records, Crutcher highlights more than 100 cases of women dying from botched, incomplete and even unnecessary abortions, all of which were legal.

In addition, more post-abortive medical complications are arising. "Since abortion was legalized, ectopic pregnancies have skyrocketed," Crutcher writes. "In 1970, there were 17,800, and by 1987 the number had swelled to 88,000."

Ectopic pregnancies are estimated to cause five to 10 percent of maternal deaths. However, the secular media never reports these facts, because, as Crutcher notes, it has "about the same relationship to legitimate journalism as professional wrestling has to legitimate sports."

Regarding abortionists themselves, "Lime 5" shows how many are alcoholics, drug abusers and suicidal.

Many don't have hospital privileges, suffer chastisement from the medical community, and, ironically, the abortion industry itself dismisses them as mere "technicians." Also, many abortion doctors have failed at general practice and are professionally trapped in performing abortions.

They exhibit strange and cruel behaviors toward women seeking abortions-and even toward their own families. Crutcher gives the example of how one abortion doctor handcuffed his wife in the bathroom and, without anesthesia, aborted his son.

"In the end, it is clear that abortion doesn't play favorites," Crutcher writes. "It devastates everyone it touches."

The abortion industry functions like no other medical entity, "Lime 5"points out. It's the only industry that can effectively usurp parental involvement, but not pay the follow up medical costs of a problematic abortion, which happens a lot to teenagers.

Because of the politically and financially powerful pro-abortion lobby, the abortion industry is practically immune to effective monitoring or legal action.

Like the media, the abortion industry is also apparently committed to a conspiracy of silence when it comes to policing itself.

For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a supposedly neutral government entity, is responsible for investigating abortion deaths, but the division which does so has been de-staffed.

Incredibly, the CDC panel of experts consists of abortionists themselves.

Crutcher documents how the CDC stalls the release of abortion- death statistics and miscodes them to actually "cook the books" in the abortion industry's favor.

In addition, CDC experts write articles on the "safety" of abortion and cite other CDC pro-abortion members in a type of "good-old-boy network."

Meanwhile, if an "outside" doctor or research scientist publishes anything that contradicts the ridiculous claim that abortion is safer than childbirth, the author is chastised and effectively mocked by the medical community.

Today, there are more than 20 professional papers on the increased likelihood of women getting breast cancer after ending their first pregnancy. But the CDC mocks the evidence and won't address the facts.

Furthermore, it won't acknowledge that abortion is directly related to increased infertility rates, lower post-abortion birth rates and maternal death by ectopic pregnancies.

Even the courts generally side with the abortionists, Crutcher writes. According to his research, a woman seeking legal action for damages-for anything from rape to mutilation-has only about a 27 percent chance of winning.

Yet Crutcher insists that after more than 23 years of abortion "rights," the juggernaut abortion industry-like anything totalitarian-is destroying itself by emotionally crippling clinic workers.

In hospitals, corner clinics and even homes, abortion continues to cost every man, woman and child a piece of their soul, he writes.

And what lies ahead for the United States? Both "Lime 5" and "The Cost of Abortion" forecast that things will continue to get worse before they better.

But for now, like the ghost population of millions of aborted children, a question haunts Americans: how can this nation ever pay what is perhaps the most crippling cost of abortion-the moral cost? How can a society in which life is expendable ever undo the damage and stem the rising tide of what Pope John Paul II has called the "Culture of death"?

Acosta writes from Colorado Springs, Cola.

Taken from the August 4, 1996 issue of "Catholic Twin Circle." For subscriptions contact: Catholic Twin Circle, P.O. Box 260380, Encino, CA 91426-0380, (800) 421-3230.

Copyright (c) 1996 EWTN

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