Talking budget while unborn die

Abortion continues to be the leading cause of death in New York State, a shameful fact that state legislators seem to have little interest in changing by curtailing the number of abortions, their method of being paid for or the technique used to effect them.

In a state that delayed passage of its budget for so long that lawmakers and the governor might as well be working on next year's, it is not surprising that the State Health's Department's vital statistics report for 1994 landed on our desk only last week, two-and-a-half years after 1994 ended. Regardless of how tardy it is, the report reveals the sad statistic that 143,698 unborn children were killed by abortions in New York State during that year.

The report contains some other sobering facts:

* About one-third of all pregnancies in the state end in abortion,

* About 40 percent of all abortions in the state are paid for by Medicaid,

* Nearly 57 percent of women who had abortions in 1994 had at least one previous abortion,

* 500 abortions were performed in the state by saline injection, a method often used when the unborn child is in the latter stages of development.

While the number of abortions dropped nearly 10,000 from the 1993 figures, that good news is tempered by the reality that abortion continues to claim more human lives in New York than any other cause. More than 143,000 unborn children were killed by abortions in the state in 1994, outpacing the 63,000 people who died from heart disease, the 40,000 who died from cancer and the 8,000 who died from AIDS. Indeed, abortion deaths outnumber the deaths from heart disease, cancer, AIDS, lung disease, accidents and pneumonia -- combined! In fact, the total number of 1994 abortions (143,698) nearly equals the number of deaths from all other causes that year -- 167,894.

If that attitude seems grossly out of balance to you, the solutions include contacting legislators in order to press your pro-life cause and voting out the legislators who don't find the abortion figures as appalling as they are.

(07-31-97) [[In-content Ad]]