A few days ago, Jacob emailed me about a stat that we had posted on the left-hand side of the blog. The one about how PP says that abortion only accounts for 3% of their services, but that really, it was 96%. I had said that that came from AUL.org. After searching and searching, the only thing that Jacob could find was proof that the 3% was the true stat. The truth of the matter is, we will never know, because many prochoicers exaggerate in their own favor and many prolifers actually do exaggerate in their own favor (I know I have been guilty of this myself in the past, though I try not to as much as possible). I'm speculating that 3% is low and 96% is high, and the stat is somewhere in the middle. I am sorry for putting false information on this blog.The proof that Jacob found for the 3% stat was on Politifact (click here to read the article) and they gave numbers directly from PP and did the math. The largest service that they provide, by far, is that of contraception. Now, to most prochoicers, abortion is defined as a surgical procedure, and even the abortion pill may fall under the category of "contraception". We probably will never truly know, numbers on both sides of any controversial issue will most often be skewed. But, when I did the math, if you count contraception as abortion (if you define abortion as the termination of a pregnancy at any stage of the pregnancy, contraception like the abortion pill, the morning after pill, etc. would probably qualify as abortion), the statistics of services including contraception and abortion is 38%.
After discussing the issue further, Jacob and I decided that from now on, we will not only give statistics from trusted prolife websites, but also prochoice sources like the Guttmacher Institute (which is affiliated with Planned Parenthood) and Planned Parenthood. The reason being, if the stats are skewed or exaggerated at all, they would be in favor of the prochoice cause, not the prolife cause. As Jacob said, "If we can use their arguments to show that we're right, we win:)." So, the stats on the sidebar will be changed to prochoice stats shortly. Here are some of the stats we will be posting:
- Nearly half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these end in abortion.
- About half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy, and nearly one-third will have an abortion, by age 45.
- Some 1.21 million abortions were performed in 2008, down from 1.31 million abortions in 2000.
- Nine in 10 abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy
- 58% of women who have had an abortion are in their 20s.
- 73% report a religious affiliation.
[*Editor's note: I don't believe everything that is said in this video. This is a prochoice video, made by a prochoice organization.]
If you have any comments about this statistics issue, please share them with us! And be sure to take our poll about it!
In CHRIST,
Aubry
Aubry! Question. I'm writing about this in my book right now. Could the 3% be referring to the number of services they provide (meaning for every three kinds of abortions they offer 97 other services) while the 96% is referring to revenue? Just a thought. :)
ReplyDeleteHmmm, good point my dear. If I find out, I'll let you know, but since you're doing the research, let me know what you find! Pro-lifers, though I love them dearly, do exaggerate just the same as pro-choicers. Either that, or I could have read the stat completely wrong, haha, not out of the question at all=P
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