By now you’ve heard the story that the abortion rate in Canada declined in the most recent survey period. Good, and yet, really–not good enough.

If we take the Guttmacher Institute’s (research arm of Planned Parenthood, an American group) reasons for why women have an abortion, and we take the number of abortions in Canada, 96,815 for 2004-2005, approximately the following number of people were not born in Canada for the following reasons that year:

(please note we have no Canadian equivalent of the Guttmacher stats so this is all very approximate)

20,330 people died for inadequate finances

20,330 people died because the woman isn’t ready

15,490 people died because the woman’s life would change too much

11,618 people died because there are problems in the relationship; the woman is unmarried

10,650 people died because the girl is too young

7,745 people died because the woman has all the children she wants

2,904 people died because the woman has a health problem

2,904 people died because the baby has health problems

968 people died because of rape or incest

3,873 people died for “other” reasons.  

(Average number of reasons given, 3.7)

I gather this is why we’re not allowed to question “a woman’s choice”: once you begin to question that, you wonder whether these are good reasons for killing people. Everyone, of course, draws their own line in the sand somewhere. 

Oh, and yes, I’ve heard the “I hope you are a pacifist” argument—indeed, were a war waged exclusively against women and children, I would protest it. That’s all I have to say about that.