(LifeSiteNews) — Approximately 89,000 babies have been saved from abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) released its estimate as part of its February 2024 “State of Abortion” annual report.
NRLC used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Guttmacher Institute, the Society for Family Planning, and an academic paper that found 32,000 babies were saved from abortion in the six months after Dobbs.
Still, there were more than 900,000 innocent babies killed through abortion in 2023, according to the NRLC’s estimates.
The pro-life group is realistic about the work that needs to be done and how the pro-abortion movement is doing everything it can to keep killing babies. This includes “old clinic employees” functioning as “travel agents.”
“The industry has made no secret of the fact that they invested a great deal of money and effort in setting up an extensive and expensive referral system,” the report states. “This is one where they made arrangements for vulnerable pregnant women from states with legal protections for unborn children to travel to clinics in neighboring or other states with abortion-supportive policies.”
“They may begin running out of money at some point, but early on, private abortion funds were spending tens of millions of dollars paying for or at least supplementing that travel or even helping to cover the costs of the abortion,” the report stated.
Governments have also helped fund abortion travel – Chicago set aside $500,000 in 2022 for abortion vendors to “to scale up access to reproductive health care for those who are going to need it,” as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.
“The abortion industry has been preparing for years to handle the higher volume from out-of-state clients, building high-volume mega-clinics just across state lines, and setting up mobile clinics to patrol the boundaries in border states,” NRLC warned.
It also discussed the prevalence of abortion pills. President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to ignore federal law and make it easy for the dangerous drugs to be mailed across the country and for pharmacies to hand them out with minimal safeguards.
The effect of abortion drugs remains a source of debate.
Data show birth rates have risen in states that have restricted abortion since June 2022. Many women in those states likely have not resorted to “self-managed” abortions, such as with illegal pills.
Dr. Michael New, a Catholic University of America professor and an expert on pro-life polling and data, has also challenged the claim that abortion drugs cancel out the effectiveness of restrictions on abortion.
Hope remains.
“Regardless of what those final numbers turn out to be, some women clearly traveled and got abortions in other states, and some ordered abortion pills over the Internet,” NRLC wrote. “The abortion industry prepared for this and helped make it happen.”
However, some women in pro-life states “decided to stay home and have their babies,” since their local abortion facility is now closed.
The focus must remain on preborn baby and mother, NRLC said.
It wrote:
The numbers show us the fight is far from over and there is still much work to be done. Expect a lot of energy, effort, and expense on both sides. Ultimately, we have to believe that the battle will be won not by the ones who have the most money or the most influence with the media, but by those who demonstrate with word and deed their love for both mother and child.
“They’re the ones who really count most of all.”
Group says federal abortion ban not possible
While the NRLC called for continuing the battle against the abortion industry, it takes the same position as people such as Ambassador Nikki Haley, who say a federal abortion ban is not possible.
“Given the current composition of Congress, a national law protecting preborn children and their mothers from the tragedy of abortion is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future,” the group wrote. “But there are still many life-affirming policies that can be enacted at the federal level that will reduce the number of abortions, help mothers, and save lives.”
Included in this list are bans on federal funding of abortion, “recognizing the role of parents to be involved before their minor daughter could get an abortion,” and protections for infants who survive an abortion.
They also called for “protective protocols on chemical abortions to reduce the risk of death and injury to the mother,” a national abortion reporting law, and conscience rights protections.
NRLC did not respond to a LifeSiteNews email this morning or a voicemail left this afternoon.
LifeSiteNews asked if the group believes Congress can and should pursue a strategy of attaching pro-life policies to pass legislation to make abortion harder to get, with specific reference to ideas laid out in a previous article.