Abortion is a big issue. A political candidate’s stance on it can make or break an election, and a doctor’s choice to carry out the procedure can be a matter of life or death. All these things aside, there’s a side of abortion that many people don’t talk about. What would the United States look like if Roe vs. Wade had played out differently? What impact would an additional 40 million people have on American society?
In the first year of Roe vs. Wade, there were 744,600 abortions, followed by 898,600 the next year. By 1983, there had been approximately 15,000,000 abortions. Today, those 15,000,000 people would be between 20 and 30 years old and would be starting to have children of their own.
It is safe to say that not all 15,000,000 of those people would still be around. Some would have died in accidents, because of natural causes, and from other reasons. Take away a million to be safe and we have 14,000,000. Let’s say a third of the 14,000,000 would have had at least one child by now. There is another five million. All in all, the first 10 years of abortions have resulted in probably 15-19 million fewer United States citizens. This only describes the current impact.
A USA Today article by David Masteo details how much of an impact abortion has had on the median age of the United States. At the time of the article, 35 million abortions were completed, resulting in an average age of 35.9 years. If these 35 million people were around today, the average age of Americans would be 33.1.
Imagine adding 10 to 15 million to the workforce. The problems of social security would be delayed for decades and the economy would likely be much larger than it is now. On the other hand, crime rates would likely be higher, since most crimes are committed by youths.
It might not be a coincidence that the crime rate began to drop around the time when the first generation of aborted children would have been in their prime crime-committing ages. States like California that legalized abortion long before the rest of the country experienced this drop first.
Abortion is definitely not the sole reason crime has decreased. In fact, crime rates began to fall among older people first. Still, the 15,000,000 babies aborted in the first 10 years of Roe vs. Wade would likely have maintained the crime rate or increased it. The Centers for Disease Control reported that in 1997, one-fifth of women who had abortions were aged 19 years or younger and were likely to be unmarried.
While many unmarried women under the age of 19 raise their children successfully, multiple studies depict an increased likelihood of delinquent children who grow up without fathers. A study at the University of California in Santa Barbara indicated that children raised in fatherless homes are twice as likely to become adolescent delinquents.
The United States is not the only country where abortion is having an enormous impact on demographics. Since the early 1990s, abortion rates in Russia have skyrocketed to the point where there are 13 abortions for every 10 children born. And in China, the regular practice of aborting females is leaving an overabundance of males in the Chinese population. Obviously, this is not good for these countries.
Abortion has many sides and no right answer. Sometimes the biggest impacts are never seen. In order to gauge the true impacts of abortion, one must look at the issue from every side and angle. They must also look at what can’t be seen.
Derek Montgomery ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and political science.
