Photo: Matt Smith
Abortion is a hot button issue in the United States and nearly everyone has an unwavering opinion – there is no argument that can be made here that will instantly change your belief. Instead I will share with you some eye opening statistics regarding abortion and let you draw your own conclusions.
I am not one to wholeheartedly believe in statistics as a statistic can be dug up (or created) to support any viewpoint. My main issue with taking statistics at face value is that there can be numerous errors in the study which are reflected in the final data. Is it truly a random sample? Is it a big enough sample to draw any conclusions? Was the study funded by an organization that had an interest in the results coming out a certain way? Fortunately, abortion is not a difficult activity to track as nearly all abortions take place in a hospital or abortion clinic. The healthcare industry accurately tracks everything – in a 2008 sample of 100 hospitals there were 4 injuries relating to slicing zucchini, including one for trying to slice it with a mandolin …
In the case of abortion the margin of error is largely irrelevant — are you even able to come up with a ballpark answer? How common are abortions? 5% of all pregnancies? 10%? 20%? 40%? Higher?
In the United States 20% of all pregnancies result in an abortion. What’s interesting is that this number varies greatly across the country and the world. The District of Columbia and New York are close to 40% while many rural states are under 10%.