Let's look at failed early abortions first:
This study found that 46 babies survived the 65,045 abortions performed. That's about one in every 1,400 abortions. With 1.2 million abortions done every year in the US, that's about 849 babies every year that survive a first-trimester abortion attempt.
The Washington State Department of Health noted that reported failed abortions are at .1%, which if extrapolated for the entire US would be roughly 1,200 babies surving first-trimester abortion attempts annually.
A study at a Planned Parenthood 17 babies survived out of 1,155 they attempted to kill by abortion -- a 1.5% failed abortion rate. Extrapolated to the entire US, this would mean roughly 18,000 babies surviving first trimester abortions.
This site cites a Planned Parenthood study. The failure rate for chemical abortion raged from 1% to 9%, and suction abortions had a failure rate of .2%.
I'm guessing that different facilities have different rates of failed abortion, just as they have different rates of other complications. But clealry, somewhere between aout 850 and 1,800 babies are surviving first-trimester attepts to kill them.
I've not been able to find any studies on what percent of mothers have somebody finish the kid off, and what percent let the child continue to gestate unmolested. But odds are pretty solid that about 1,000 American women every year get a second chance at motherhood after making an initial choice of death for their child. The fact that many of them do choose life after having initially choosing abortion casts some doubt over claims that abortion is so "necessary". After all, if having that baby would utterly ruin her life, it will still utterly ruin her life even if it's gestated a couple of extra weeks. If the fact that the baby is a bit bigger and older is enough to change the woman's mind, she never had that compelling a reason in the first place, did she?
What of failed late abortions?
I blogged some examples in More Born-Alive Babies, More Born Alive Babies and Their Fates, Obama, Babies, and the Benefit of the Doubt, and Obama and the Born Alive Babies. The last count of how many of such babies are born alive in the US was by the Centers for Disease Control, who said there were 400 - 500 reported every year but no doubt many more going unreported. As CDC spokesman Willard Cates said, "It's like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit" to report a live birth after an abortion. And nobody keeps statistics on how many of these babies die of prematurity or from their injuries, how many are allowed to die of neglect, how many are murdered, and how many survive.
Why do we have no data? Because nobody with the power to collect the information actually cares. They don't even care enough about maternal survival to keep accurate statistics. How much less do they care about babies that survive?
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While reading all this crap about failed abortions, which I truly believed was pretty much nonexistent until I did the research, I broke into tears as I turned from my desk and saw my husband holding our 11-month-old adopted daughter. Her birth mother said she had never known she was pregnant and gave birth to her a month early exposed to meth. Our agency told us she would most likely have many health problems and my response was, "Bring it on!" Because we were willing to take that chance we now are blessed with a 100% healthy baby girl. I can't imagine that a gift like her could not exist, but so is the reality for many babies that never have the chance to be unconditionally loved by families like mine! I just walked away from my computer and took her from my husband and hugged her tight; just feeling so blessed but sad too for all the poor babies who don’t make it, and those that do who have to live knowing their birth mothers did not want to give them the chance to become the wonderful people they are capable of becoming. Thanks for this site! If only everyone cared to do the research.
ReplyDeleteGive your little one a hug from me!
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't take credit for the research. It's an annoying compulsion, really, like Adrian Monk touching parking meters. I'm just glad that it occasionally does some good.
Thank you so much for the wonderful information. http://awomanshaven.com/unplanned-pregnancy-and-abortion
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