The pro-life movement, whether it deserves a lot or a little of the credit, has been doing something right about abortion.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released in December showed the number of induced abortions in the United States had declined from 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.1 million in 2010, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
That’s still a million too many, but it speaks to the campaign to change minds and hearts that the pro-life movement has been about for the better part of two decades.
The largest drop came among black women, who still have the highest rate of abortions but who fell from 67 abortions per 1,000 women in 1990 to 47.7 abortions per 1,000 women in 2010.
Into the abortion argument last week lumbered Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who told a badgering Chris Matthews of CNBC that “there has to be some sort of punishment” for women who have abortions once he signed new restrictions into law if he became chief executive.