Last Friday, the March for Life took place in Washington DC.
It was historic.
For the first time in history, the President of the United States directly addressed, in person, the hundreds of thousands of marchers who came to DC to make their voices heard.
We should all be grateful to President Trump for that.
Does It Really Matter?
Following the March for Life, or any other of the marches that take place in other cities around the country, a question always comes into my mind.
The question is, “How many of those marching truly understand what the impact of overturning Roe versus Wade would be?“
What I’m about to say is, admittedly, very unscientific in terms of research, but I would wager that more than half of those marching believe that overturning Roe versus Wade would end legal abortion in the United States.
I wish that those pro-lifers who think that were correct, but alas, it isn’t so.
Overturning Roe versus Wade would send the issue of abortion back to the states, each state deciding what the relevant laws would be within their own states.
Given that, how many lives would actually be saved from abortion if Roe versus Wade was overturned?
Unfortunately, not as many as you might think.
According to David French, in an article written for National Review, a study by researchers found that in “more than half of states, including the entire West Coast and Northeast, overturning Roe would have no real effect on abortion access.”
This is a sobering reality.
It Matters. But…
Returning to the question of how many lives would be saved from abortion, according to the research it is around 100,000 lives per year.
Now that would be an amazing achievement.
So absolutely, making our voices heard through marching and other forms of pro-life advocacy matters, a lot.
But if the researchers are correct in their forecast, the lives saved from overturning Roe versus Wade would still account for less than 13% of the total number of abortions in the United States.
Considering how much time, talent and treasure the Pro-Life Movement invests every year in an effort to bring about laws that would protect the right to life of preborn humans, that number seems a little depressing.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at one particular investment in the Pro-Life Movement that was announced recently, and consider its potential impact from a Return on Investment (ROI) perspective.
Regards,
Brett
What Is the ROI on Investments that Restrict Access to Abortion? – Brett Attebery's Diary
[…] might that ROI look like? We can make a rough estimate based on the research I referenced in yesterday’s article. Recall from that article that research estimates overturning Roe versus Wade would result in […]
What Is the ROI on Investments that Restrict Access to Abortion? – Brett Attebery's Diary
[…] might that ROI look like? We can make a rough estimate based on the research I referenced in yesterday’s article. Recall from that article that research estimates overturning Roe versus Wade would result in […]