Over 41 million abortions estimated in 2018, making ‘choice’ world’s leading cause of death

Jan 9, 2019 by Jill

by Calvin Freiburger, LifeSite:

Abortions dwarfed every other cause of death worldwide at more than 41 million in 2018, according to the statistics tracking service Worldometers.

Worldometers tracks and estimates statistics in real time on a wide variety of subjects, based on data from sources such as the United Nations, World Health Organization (WHO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and more. It boasts recognition and citations from a wide variety of media outlets and academic works, as well as the endorsement of the American Library Association.

On December 31, a number of media outlets including Breitbart reported that as of the end of the year, Worldometers’ statistics page for abortion showed that more than 41 million induced abortions (as distinguished from “spontaneous abortions,” better known as miscarriages) had taken place globally in 2018.

That estimate would represent a substantial decrease from the WHO’s estimate of 56 million worldwide abortions every year from 2010 to 2014, though Abort73’s Michael Spielman warns that the WHO relies on estimates from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, which he argues used questionable methodology to compensate for many countries’ complete lack of actual data.

“[O]f the 56.3 million global abortions Guttmacher estimates annually, no more than 10% can be officially accounted for and only 23% have any basis in empirical evidence,” Spielman writes. “The other 77% are assumed based upon a complex statistical model that estimates” a variety of factors. Most significantly, Guttmacher “assume[s] a constant abortion rate that is unaffected by the legality of abortion,” potentially to sway the findings in favor of the abortion lobby’s claim that pro-life laws are ineffective.

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