Week in Review
Data Breakdown: Abortion Pill Regimen Accounts for 63% of All Abortions
New data from the Guttmacher Institute shows a sobering jump in abortion violence. In this issue of PLTW, we will first break down the numbers and give you the facts. The second article will address what we can do moving forward as we seek to find some hope amid this dark information.
The latest data on abortion is in from the Guttmacher Institute, and the results are sobering. Nationwide, abortions have risen 10 percent since 2020, and 63 percent of all abortions are now done via the abortion pill regimen.
The last time the data was collected, the abortion pill regimen accounted for 53 percent of all abortions. The new data reflects information collected in 2023, showing the 10 percent jump.
According to Guttmacher, the study found that “in 2023, there were an estimated 1,026,690 abortions in the formal US health care system and a rate of 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. This represents a 10% increase in the number of abortions from 2020 and is the highest number and rate of abortions measured in the United States in more than a decade.”
The most important thing to note here is the phrase “abortions in the formal US health care system.”
These numbers do NOT account for abortions done with the abortion pill regimen where the pills were obtained through a third-party site. What this tells us is that 63 percent—an already staggering number—is just the baseline.
The study also tracked state-by-state abortion numbers, looking specifically at states that border ones with so-called “total bans.” The study found that these bans have NOT stopped abortions, they have merely trafficked them across state lines, as it explains that “the sharpest increases were seen in states bordering ban states, where abortions increased by 37% from 2020 to 2023.”
The tireless crusade of the abortion industry has worked hard over the last year, giving us the highest abortion numbers on record since 2011.
Where Do We Go from Here?
What is happening in our country is evil. There is no denying it. The rise in abortion is not because of a sudden “need” for abortion. It is because there are evil people at work who hate human life and will do whatever is necessary to snuff it out. They disguise murder as women’s healthcare and convince generations of women to kill their children only to leave them alone to pick up the pieces.
I frequently hear people say they want to “leave God out of the argument,” as if it will better help them convince people that human life has value. The state of our nation leaves us no choice but to embrace that God is a part of this fight, so much so that we will never win unless we have His help.
We must pray for our nation. We must pray for young mothers and fathers. We must pray for the safety of children, born and preborn. Prayer is our best defense against the evil that seeks to destroy human life.
People are often frustrated with prayer, as they feel like they are not doing enough. But I challenge you to consider that maybe you are not called to be a mover and shaker in the sense that you do some large action to change hearts and minds. Maybe God is asking us to humble ourselves and recognize that we cannot do this alone.
Maybe He is using this devastating reality to call us back to Him.
Have we really done that well on our own? Not according to these numbers.
It is time we humble ourselves and pray. I invite you all to do this on your own or to join the Marian Blue Wave, a community of 10,000+ prayer warriors dedicated to praying a weekly rosary for an end to abortion.
The power of prayer is immeasurable. Don’t think of it in terms of “All I can do is pray.” Switch your mindset to “The BEST thing I can do is pray.”
Pray every day for an end to abortion and for the protection of the family.
ALL in the News
Katie Brown, ALL’s director of communications, was invited back on OANN’s show Tipping Point on Thursday evening. Katie discussed the Charity Watchlist’s finds about the Girl Scouts. The link to the show will be available next week.
Susan Ciancio, editor of Celebrate Life Magazine and director of the Culture of Life Studies Program, writes a weekly commentary on timely pro-life topics. This week her op-ed celebrated the life of ALL founder Judie Brown. It was published by Catholic365.
Twice a week, Judie’s commentaries are distributed to an expansive media list. The list contains over 100 media outlets such as Fox News, The Federalist, Breitbart, and The Daily Caller, among others. Judie’s commentaries are each featured on the front page of ALL.org.
Pro-Life Education
Culture of Life Studies Program
Dream of the Rood: The word rood refers to the cross on which Jesus died. In the early 7th or 8th century, an unknown author wrote a poem entitled “Dream of the Rood.” This poem recounts Christ’s passion and death from the perspective of the cross. To help teens understand the poem, CLSP created a lesson about it that explores the power of redemptive suffering and the Christian’s fundamental need for salvation. In this three-class study, students peel back the layers of imagery, language, and symbolism to reveal a message about the sacredness of all human beings. It is the perfect lesson as we embark on Holy Week. ORDER HERE
ALL’s Education Materials
The Presence Is Real: At the Last Supper, when Christ said, “This is My body,” He meant it literally. Jesus is truly present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the Eucharist. Yet many Catholics don’t understand this truth, or maybe they were never taught it. Would you know what to say if someone told you they didn’t believe that the Eucharist is truly Christ? Our brochure will not only give you the wisdom, but it will give you the words to speak it with. SHOP NOW
Pro-Life Social Media
Personhood and the Grave Errors of the Pro-Life Movement
The pro-life movement lost momentum when the big players in Washington abandoned principle for the hollow reward of winning votes. They stopped doing what was right—equal rights for the preborn—and began doing what was winnable (e.g., adding rape exceptions, partial-birth abortion bans, and gestational limits). Babies became fodder for the political class, and now we have 50 years and tens of millions of dead children.
American Life League and Judie Brown have never abandoned principle. If an eight-week-old preborn baby isn’t worth saving, what is so different about an eight-month-old preborn baby that he is worth saving? After all, both of them are human beings. Both of them are persons. Their personhood is not any different than that of an eight-month-old BORN baby.
Mistakes continue to happen in the pro-life movement. Judie Brown lays them out along with many other inconvenient truths in this archived interview from 2014. It’s as relevant today as it was then.
