-
January 22, 2021On Friday, January 22nd, Mr. Rodgers' religion classes placed a trail of footprints through the hallways of Bishop Ryan to visually represent the millions of lives lost to the scourge of abortion in this country since 1973. Since January 22, 1973, the day the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the 7-2 ruling in the Roe v. Wade case that defined many federal and state laws banning abortion as unconstitutional, there have been approximately 62 million lives lost in the US alone.
Each of the 175 footprints following the path throughout the school represents approximately 354,285 lives lost.
In comparison to other major causes of death reported by U.S. officials:
647,457: Heart Disease is the #1 cause of death in the United States, as of 2017, the most recent
year figures are available
599,108: Cancer is the #2 cause of death, per the 2017 data.
Approximately 700,000: the number of U.S. deaths attributed to HIV/AIDS 1981-2018
862,000: Number of deaths due to abortion in US in 2017.
(Abortion is not considered as an official cause of death in the United States.)
In a bit of good news, this number has dropped every year since 1990.
If we move to world statistics, we see even more sobering numbers. In history, there are few events that are looked to as benchmarks for loss of human life, but in comparison:
9,400,000: total lives lost in the ten deadliest natural disasters in the world’s history, combined
11,000,000: total lives lost in the Holocaust
24,000,000: total lives lost in the Soviet Union (military and civilian) during WWII
1,602,157,461: total lives lost worldwide to abortion since 1980
That's an average of:
39,077,011 deaths per year
107,060 deaths per day
4,461 deaths per hour
74 deaths per minute
1.25 deaths per second
We continue to pray for the heartbeats made silent, the mothers and fathers seeking healing and peace, and a day when society trades our culture of death for one that truly values the sanctity of life at all stages.
