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By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

MT. FREEDOM, NJ, October 21, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Researcher Dennis M. Howard, president of the pro-life group Movement for a Better America, who has been tracking the economic impact of abortion since 1995, has shown that the 50.5 million surgical abortions since 1970 have cost the U.S. $35 trillion dollars in lost Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

If the number of missing children includes those aborted by IUDs, RU-486, sterilization and abortifacients, the figure climbs to over $70 trillion.

Originally calculating losses in “downstream tax revenues as an index of the cost of abortion,” which showed only government revenue loss, Howard then turned to using lost GDP (GDP per capita per year times the cumulative number of abortions since 1970) as a measure of total economic cost.

“No matter how you slice it, aggressive ‘population control’ exacts a huge price in future economic growth that can never be recovered. Indeed, it is a loss that reverberates through all future generations. Without an enormous new Baby Boom lasting another 40 or 50 years, that growth is lost forever. We don’t have a debt crisis. We have a death crisis,” wrote Howard.

Howard mentions the collapse of the former Soviet Union as an example of a nation whose demographic implosion has contributed to its economic breakdown.

“The main reason for their collapse was internal – 300 abortions for every 100 live births for decades. Their future is still grim. Right now, there are not enough younger women to reverse their population decline. Indeed, they are expected to lose another 40 million people between now and 2050.”

Barry McLerran, producer of the film “Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family,” said Russia’s population is currently declining by approximately 750,000 people a year. Efforts by the Russian government to boost its population, including paying parents the equivalent of US $9,200 for every child after the first one, are failing.

Referring to current worldwide financial crisis, Howard recalled his 1997 report titled, “The Abortion Bomb: America’s Demographic Disaster.” In it he said, “I see little hope that we can avoid an eventual crash on Wall Street that will make the 1930’s look like cashing in your cards after a bad game of Monopoly.”

He also predicted, “It will last longer than the Great Depression, and if it takes a war to get out of it – as happened with World War II – America as we know it may not survive.”

The societal cost of abortion, both economic and moral, has been studied for years, but very little mainstream media attention is given to the findings.

In his book “The Cost of Abortion” (Four Winds, LaGrange, GA, 1995) Lawrence F. Roberge gathered and analyzed statistics on the number of abortions and the correlation between abortion and the decline in fertility and an increase in medical complications such as Asherman’s syndrome.

Roberge’s research showed the direct connection between the number of abortions and declines in GDP, which involve not only the lost potential of the aborted children, but the spin-off effects of, for example, the elimination of 950,000 to 1.2 million potential teaching jobs.

“There is a certain time and place for everyone,” Roberge says, “and what happens is that, when you remove a life, it has a rippling effect throughout society. And it has an effect on the growth and future prosperity of that nation. Unless we take good care of [our] future and cultivate it instead of destroy it, we will have no future for this nation.”

An article by National Right to Life (NRL) Research Assistant Laura Antkowiak published in 1998 titled, “What Do 40 Million Lost Lives Mean?” gave further evidence of the economic impact of abortion in the US. (https://www.nrlc.org/news/2001/NRL01/laura.html)

A 1998 feature on the cost of a child that appeared in U.S. News & World Report, declared, “A child, financially speaking, looks more like a high-priced consumer item with no warranty. It’s the decision to remain childless that offers the real investment opportunity.” Antkowiak, however, responded, stating, “The economic argument designed by pro-abortionists collapses when we examine children’s place in the economy as consumers, workers, innovators, and taxpayers.”

“The simple response to the abortion advocates’ case is that most children inevitably grow into adults. They work and pay taxes, or otherwise spend, save, invest, and innovate,” Antkowiak points out. “Economists attest that even before these children reach adulthood, their very belonging to a large and growing population spurs economic growth.”

In 2006 Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), warned that the aging population will produce a dangerous imbalance between those who produce (GDP) and those are dependent on them.

“When you look at the projections that show our population aging rapidly over the next few decades, when you see our economy and government programs such as Social Security risking bankruptcy, you can see that the United States’ annual 0.9% population growth rate is not enough,” said Mosher.

“America’s baby boomers didn’t have many children on average, and as a result, our country faces a gray dawn. Even our currently high immigration levels haven’t made up the difference.”

Joseph A. D’Agostino, Vice President for Communications at PRI added, “According to United Nations figures, the percentage of the American population 65 or over will rise from 12.3% today to 20.6% by 2050. The proportion of Americans 80 or over will rise from 3.6% to 7.3% of the population. Our worker-to-retiree ratio is already at a dangerous 3-to-1.

“By 2050, it will be 2-to-1,” D’Agostino said. “And those retirees will be living much longer than they do today thanks to beneficial improvements in health care.” (https://www.pop.org/main.cfm?EID=1067)

Link to the Movement for a Better America report: https://www.movementforabetteramerica.org/

See Movement for a Better America’s “Abortion Bomb” chart that dramatically illustrated the devastation of lost lives abortion has caused in the United States since Roe V Wade.
  https://www.movementforabetteramerica.org/images/BombFlyer.pdf

Read related LifeSiteNews.com articles:

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German Population Plunge “Irreversible,” Federal Stats Office Admits
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Russian Abortion Killing and Sterilizing Millions; Demographic Collapse Likely to be Worse than Previously Predicted
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05041209.html

New Research Indicates Abortion Demographic Shift in U.S.
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