The State of Abortion in the United States 2020

For immediate release: Wednesday, January 22, 2020
For more information: Laura Echevarria, (202) 626-8825, [email protected]

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE RELEASES SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT:
THE STATE OF ABORTION IN THE UNITED STATES

WASHINGTON – The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) today released "The State of Abortion in the United States, 2020." In addition to summarizing key legislative developments in the states and at the federal level, the seventh annual report also analyzes data on the annual number of abortions in the United States. The report examines recent actions on the Equal Rights Amendment and dissects the 2018-2019 annual report of the nation's abortion giant, Planned Parenthood.

"More than 61 million unborn children have died as a result of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions," said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president. "However, through the right-to-life movement's determination to protect mothers and their children, we continue to see evidence that our efforts to educate America about the unborn child's humanity, and our efforts to enact protective pro-life legislation, are having a tremendous impact in moving our nation away from Roe and Doe's deadly legacy."

Key highlights from the report include:

· Based on data from the Guttmacher Institute and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and estimating figures for subsequent years (2018-2019), National Right to Life now estimates 61,628,584 abortions have been performed in the United States since 1973.

· Utilizing data from the Guttmacher Institute and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Right to Life estimates that the number of abortions has dropped to 862,320 annually – the lowest number recorded since 1973, and nearly 800,000 less than the all-time high of 1.6 million in 1990. National Right to Life attributes continued pro-life educational, legislative, and political efforts with much of the overall decline seen over the past 30 years.

· State legislatures continue to be successful in enacting pro-life legislation that extends protections to unborn children and helps their mothers. These laws include protections for pain-capable unborn children, laws banning dismemberment abortions of living unborn babies, and efforts to steer state funding away from organizations that perform abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.

· Planned Parenthood, which reported over $1.6 billion in revenues in 2018-2019, while posting over $240 million in "excess revenue," is estimated to have made nearly $160 million performing 345,672 abortions – over 40% of all abortions in the United States annually.

The report is available from the National Right to Life Communications Department here: http://www.nrlc.org/uploads/communications/stateofabortion2020.pdf.

National Right to Life experts, including President Carol Tobias, Director of Education and Research Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D., Director of State Legislation Ingrid Duran, and Legislative Director Jennifer Popik, J.D., are available to provide further information about the report and its insights. To arrange an interview, call the NRLC Communications Department at (202) 626-8825 or email [email protected].

Founded in 1968, National Right to Life, the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

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REPORT: The State of Abortion in the United States, 2020 (PDF)