The History of Abortion In 1973, the Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade, which created a bright line at “viability,” holding that abortions could occur before the unborn child could survive outside the womb, but not after that point. Nineteen years later, the Supreme Court had an opportunity to reconsider Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, but instead affirmed it and created the “undue burden standard” prohibiting states from regulating abortion before viability in such a way as to create an undue burden on access to abortion.
Since Roe v. Wade was handed down 49 years ago, we have aborted over 60 million unborn babies in America. In 2020, the last year in which we have figures, 930,160 unborn babies were aborted nationwide, according to the CDC. In North Carolina there were 30,004 abortions in 2020; 5,000 of those were women from out-of-state.
The major reason for abortions in America is the “convenience of the mother.” Ninety-eight percent of abortions are elective, including socio-economic reasons or for birth control. Thirty percent are primarily for economic reasons. Actual percentage of U.S. abortions in "hard cases" are estimated as follows:
- rape, 0.3%
- incest, 0.03%
- risk to maternal life, 0.1%
- risk to maternal health, 0.8%
- fetal health issues, 0.5%
All in all, the “hard” cases only account for 1.73% of abortions.
Yet, that is all the left wants to argue about—the cases where the mother’s life is at risk or rape, or incest.
Today around 50% of abortions are done through chemical abortions—taking the RU486 abortion pills. The abortion is caused by ingesting two pills, and NC law requires that the first pill be administered in the presence of a licensed doctor. However, once President Biden took office, his administration loosened the FDA requirements for the abortion pills, and now abortion clinics and other mysterious groups are providing abortion pills through the mail to pregnant women in NC without an examination and without an ultrasound, increasing the danger of complications and even death. Clearly, this violates state law and creates a very dangerous situation that needs some oversight by lawmakers and law enforcement.