By Nigel Boys
Pennsylvania’s number of abortions has dropped dramatically from the figure of 65,777 performed in 1980 to 32,108 in 2013, which is a decrease of 51.2%. But there is still a long way to go to save more lives, according to a new report.
The report from the state’s Department of Health (DOH) continued that the termination of unborn babies has continued to fall and the 2013 figure shows a drop of 7%, or 2,428 fetuses, from the 34,536 recorded in 2012. It adds that the 2013 figures are the lowest ever recorded since accurate figures began to be gathered.
Most of the termination procedures were performed by practitioners on unmarried mothers. In fact, 28,262 of the total ab0rtions, or 88% in Pennsylvania, fell into this category, according to the report.
By far, women between the ages of 20 to 24 years were the largest group of women seeking to terminate their unborn child, which accounted for 34.6% of the total terminations, or 11,099. This was followed by those under 19 with 3,740, or 11.6%, and those under 17 with 3.5%, which amounted to 1,125 aborted fetuses.
The report also showed that women from four counties in the Commonwealth were more prone to seek terminating their babies, with 83% of the total number of procedures coming from Allegheny, Dauphin, Northampton and Philadelphia. The counties of Montgomery and Delaware also showed a large number of resident ab0rtions with 1,725 and 1,609, respectively.
Over 62% of the total number of procedures performed in Pennsylvania in 2013 were done by the suction curettage method, which amounted to about 20,000 fetuses. This means that the unborn babies were forcefully ripped out of the mother’s womb by a suction device used by the practitioner, which then dumped the remains into a jar. In most of these cases, the unborn child is torn to pieces during this process.
“Modern technology is making it easier to see the value of life in the womb and the tragedy of abortion,” Michaiah Bilger of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation said of the decrease in abortions. “Ultrasounds allow parents to see their baby smiling or sucking his or her thumb, and a new study from the University of Florida showed that pre-born babies can learn nursery rhymes in the womb.”
However, Planned Parenthood declared in their annual nationwide report that 327,653 procedures had been performed during 2013-2014, which is a rise of 487 from the previous year. This equates to almost 1 ab0rtion every 90 seconds.
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