Issues - Abortion - NOW

(Huffington Post) -- By Terry O'Neill, President, National Organization for Women

Each year, about one million infants die on the same day they're born. This includes about 11,300 infants in the United States. That's 30 infant deaths each and every day! If that sounds like a lot, it's because it is.

We have a premature birth crisis in this country that can be directly linked to our failure to provide adequate contraception and abortion care. About half of pregnancies in the U.S. each year are unintended, and for those women who carry their pregnancies to term (more than half do), the prognosis is anything but great. They not only experience higher rates of premature birth, but also are more likely to have inadequate prenatal care, low birth weight and small size infants, maternal depression and anxiety.

From a public health point of view, abortion care, no less than contraception, is an essential measure to prevent the heartbreak of infant mortality, and to prevent another tragedy as well -- maternal death.

Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. (AP). Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and a strong supporter of abortion, said there is a "premature birth crisis" in the United States that is linked to inadequate "contraception and abortion care," and added that "abortion care," along with contraception is necessary "to prevent the heartbreak of infant mortality."

O’Neill noted that “about 11,300 infants in the United States” die the same day they were born in the United States.”

“That’s 30 infant deaths each and every day!” she said. “If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is.”

According to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, it performed 327,653 abortions in 2013-14. That equals about 897 babies killed by abortion every day that year.

Nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute, there were 1.06 million abortions in 2011, which equals about 2,904 babies killed every day.

Guttmacher further reports that since Roe v. Wade in 1973 (and through 2011), there have been nearly 53 million abortions in the United States.

That equals about 1.3 million abortions every year, on average, or about 3,457 abortions on average every day in the United States -- 144 abortions every hour, more than 2 abortions every minute.