{"id":221640,"date":"2020-04-11T11:40:43","date_gmt":"2020-04-11T16:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=221640"},"modified":"2020-04-14T16:27:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T21:27:18","slug":"abortion-proponents-not-decrease-child-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-proponents-not-decrease-child-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite claims from abortion proponents, abortion does not decrease child abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Supporters of legal abortion have long argued that abortion is necessary in order to bring an end to child abuse. In the days immediately prior to the Roe v. Wade<\/em> decision which legalized abortion, abortion advocates began making this erroneous claim and have continued to this day. In reality, legal abortion did nothing to end child abuse, and in fact, violence against children has only dramatically risen since the 1970s.<\/p>\n

In 1973, the year abortion became legal across the United States, abortion proponent Larry Lader said<\/a>, “The impact of the abortion revolution may be too vast to assess immediately. It should usher in an era when every child will be wanted, loved, and properly cared for; when the incidence of infanticides and battered children should be sharply reduced.” In 1978, NARAL – now known as the National Abortion Rights Action League – made a similar statement regarding abortion and child abuse:<\/p>\n

A policy that makes contraception and abortion freely available will greatly reduce the number of unwanted children, and thereby curb the tragic rise of child abuse in our country. … Legal abortion will decrease the number of unwanted children, battered children, child abuse cases, and possibly subsequent delinquency, drug addiction, and a host of social ills<\/strong> believed to be associated with neglectful parenthood.<\/em><\/p>\n

This claim couldn’t have been further from the truth.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Why is Planned Parenthood ignoring these red flags of sexual abuse?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since 1973, the number of cases of child abuse and neglect has risen from 167,000 cases annually to 700,000<\/strong>. In 2015, according to the National Children’s Alliance<\/a>, Child Protective Services worked with about 3.4 million children suffering from alleged abuse. And according to the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse<\/a>, over 1,000 children are being killed by abusive adults annually. In 2001, the Washington Post reported<\/a> that the “rate of killing for infants before their first birth[day] rose from 7.2\/100,000 to 8.7\/100,000 between 1983-1991. It continued to rise thereafter, reaching 9.1\/100,000 in 2000.” Additionally, death by homicide was the only leading cause of death in children to rise during this time period.<\/p>\n