Pro-life advocates were given a sort of surprise two weeks ago after a major worldwide survey claimed that majorities in 17 out of the 18 countries polled “reject using criminal penalties, such as fines and imprisonment, as a means to prevent abortion.”
While pro-choice advocates have used the survey’s results to strengthen their cause in legalizing abortion worldwide, the American Life League dismissed the survey’s results as inaccurate and unreliable.
“As excited as abortion advocates may be to see a poll seemingly validating their attitudes, this WorldPublicOpinion.org poll isn't the golden ticket they're looking for,” the group said in a statement.
The ALL said that the poll, which asked respondents their opinions on criminal enforcement of abortions and government roles in discouraging them, fails to bring legitimate results.
“The two poll questions are somewhat loaded and fail to address the core issue of abortion, and thus can't be viewed as evenhanded,” the group said.
“Read the fine print, and you'll see that many of the individual nation samples were overly urban, due to the use of face-to-face polling,” the group added. “In other nations, landline telephones were used to gather information. Mexico's numbers were gathered by using random telephone sampling, despite only 55 percent of Mexican households having a telephone, meaning that lower and rural classes were less likely to be sampled.”
The ALL, like many other pro-life groups, continue to assert that abortion remains unpopular and harmful to people worldwide.
According to a 2006 release of The Western Catholic Reporter, 46 million babies are aborted worldwide every year.
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I looked up the number of people who die from abortion. Its about 1 million per year (we're up to about 40 million since 1972) in this country alone. Canada about 110,000. 40,000 in Czech Republic, 10,000 in Finland, 150,000 in France, 700,000 reported in India, 100,000 in Italy, 19,000 in Israel, 33,000 in Netherlands, 18,000 in New Zealand, 13,000 in Norway, 400,000 in Philippines, 190,000 in Romania, 1,800,000 in Russia (at one point USSR had 5.5 Million/year). The numbers for those 14 countries come to about 4.5 million per year. There are about 195 countries in this world.
4.5 million per year. This does not include China or any of the other 180 or so countries in the world. Abortion needs to be stopped.
But the thing is, even more than that, people need Christ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_about_abortion_by_country
http://www.christianliferesources.com/?/library/view.php&articleid=1042
"I am very pro-choice, but even more than that I'm pro-truth."
OK...here's the truth. The Bible says to stay 'pure' until marriage. When people make the choice to disobey God they end up in situations where they want an abortion.
Rape, incest and the life of the mother account for almost none of the abortions done in the USA.
@jjdiogenes: Just to clarify; the word fetus comes from the Latin, and means ( unborn, developing Human ) in other words, already a human waiting to be born. Also, thanks to technology, we're able to recognize just how true it is that life begins at conception.
"Life is present from the moment of conception."
- Dr. Jerome Lejeune, late professor and world renowned geneticist, University of Descarte, Paris
I am very pro-choice, but even more than that I'm pro-truth. If everyone just cut the crud and used real facts with no obfuscation, we would still have an abortion debate, but we wouldn't be as angry at each other. It would be easier to communicate and understand each other. NARAL wouldn't have to fine-comb every bit of pro-baby legislation just to make sure that it wasn't an antiabortion law in disguise.
Thank God for Guttmacher!
viking, you are just a nicer person than I am.
Amen, viking.
Hi all,
I am hesitant to comment on such a controversial subject but I'll give it a try. It seems to me that Christ calls us to love and service.
It seems to me that rather than spending energy and resources on political selfagrandizing battles we would better serve Christ by focusing on 1. helping to prevent unwanted pregnacies in the first place,2. making more adoption options available for the familyless children of the world,3. Supporting loving alternatives to abortion, 4. reaching out in loving ministry rather than condemnation to those in need of God's grace.
Once agian this only proves you get what you ask for. It's been proven that doing a poll with the same questions asked 2 different ways will get completely different results.
In short, if you want a survey to prove something...let me know. I'll write the questions for you!
I pray I never have to deal with abortion with any close family member. It must be horrifying.
All I know is that the only person who gets to decide about an abortion is the woman carrying that baby.
While I don't agree that they're just "fetuses," jjdiogenes does have a point. I'm not sure what is the best way to handle this, criminalization doesn't seem like the answer. You can hardly lock up the doctor and not lock up the woman or her "partner in crime." But that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of Christ. Its definitely a difficult situation.
Lex: That's assuming they were children (which they aren't). They're fetuses.
Abortion is one of those tricky subjects. I lean against abortion but then I've never been in the situation where I've gotten a girl pregnant and wished I hadn't. So who would you be in favor of locking up? The woman and the doctor? What about the guy? He must be complicit if it is determined to be a crime? Talk about overcrowding prisons.
@Diana626: Of course it matters. You can't buy your way into heaven on a clean pro-life voting record, if's that what you mean. But it matters.
4000 children die in the womb every day in this country at the hands of people who thing that abortion is right. How can you say that doesn't matter? That's 4000 lives that God has named. That's 4000 evangelists, worship leaders, missionaries, pastors, etc. every day. Of course it matters.
I saw this bumper sticker today:
I FOUND JESUS !
He was behind the sofa the whole time.
Whether you believe abortion is right or wrong does not matter. If you don't know Christ, you are still going to hell.
Choose this day life (as God has defined it). Preach the Gospel!!