The Leading Cause of Death in America

Newsletter Article for April 2005

© 2005 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

The government and the popular media would like you to believe that more people die of heart disease each year than any other cause, but that is not quite true. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in 2002 (the latest data available) 696,947 people died of heart disease and 557,271 people died of cancer. These were the reported leading causes of death in 2002, but in their annual reports the NCHS and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) omit the greatest killer of Americans. In 2002 there were an estimated 1,300,000 people killed by abortion in the United States. This is more than died of heart disease and cancer combined! That makes abortion, far and away, the leading cause of death in America, but because of politics, it is officially unacknowledged.

The failure of the government to accurately report this fact means that few people realize the true magnitude of the problem. Although the information is available, you really have to work to find it, and few people do, so most Americans remain ignorant about the magnitude of the tragedy. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) calculates that since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court first illegally legislated nationwide permissive abortion laws, there have been at least 44,000,000 abortion deaths in the United States through 2004. The AGI also believes that these numbers are low by as much as 2,000,000 due to abortion providers underreporting their true numbers.

These numbers are truly frightening. Although the number of people killed each year in abortions has gone down slightly since about 1990, the 1,300,000 Americans killed each year are more than were killed in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two recent Iraq wars, and the war in Afghanistan combined (1,111,000)!

This is one issue in which Christians should be the strongest voices in opposition to this senseless slaughter, and among those supporting anti-abortion activities Christians certainly are well represented, and Christians aren’t the only ones working to stop the slaughter, but compared to the magnitude of the problem their voices seem to be as yet small and drowned out by a belligerent force viciously supporting the murder of millions of innocent babies each year. Christians should be united in this cause because God’s Word is very clear. God’s Command says, “You shall not murder.” In several other places such as Deut. 18:10-13 and Leviticus 18:21 God further clarifies this by forbidding and condemning parents from murdering their children. In Jeremiah 7:31 God condemns His people for killing their children because it was “something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” Although the ancient people did this to children who were already born there is no doubt that God’s response was and is the same. In Deut. 18 God forbids the ritual murder of children, calls it “detestable”, and reminds them that it is because of these “detestable practices” of the Canaanites that God was going to drive them out of the land in order to give the land to the Israelites (who would presumably not do such practices.)

Now some godless abortion apologist would likely point out that in not one of the 44,000,000 (or 46,000,000) abortions performed in the U.S. in the past 32 years has anyone called on Molech. This much is true, as far as it goes, but it ignores the real reasons behind the ancient pagan practice of infanticide. The reason why the ancient pagans killed their children was because they wanted their god to bless them and make them prosper and if this detestable practice meant one less mouth to feed then so much the better (until the real God got fed up with this and sent conquering enemies to slaughter the whole lot of them). People today have abortions for much the same reason. They want to prosper, and what they imagine prosperity to be is being able to commit adulteries and fornication and not have to deal with the responsibilities of the results of such activities (i.e. children).

You can ignore ALL of the popular arguments in favor of abortion. They are all grotesque, detestable lies. According to National Right to Life, a survey of women seeking abortions indicated that only 7% of women cited typical “hard cases” (rape, incest, or some health concern with either the baby or the mother) as the primary reason they were seeking abortion. That means 93% of abortions (about 41,000,000 in the past 32 years) were the completely “detestable” actions committed for the convenience of the mother and/or the father (not that the other 7% are not also detestable to God). Although the statistics also show that the death rate for women who have abortions has gone down since 1973, it is still immoral to slaughter 1,300,000 innocent babies to save 200 lives.

Bernard Nathanson is a former abortion doctor who helped sell legal abortion to the nation in the early 1970’s. He came to realize what a horror this really was and in an eye-opening and chilling article entitled “How Lying Marketers Sold Roe vs. Wade to America” he tells how abortion advocates lied (and still lie) to influence public opinion. He says,

We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one, knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1 million.

Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000.

Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization.

The lying continues, as shown by the government’s refusal to accurately report the number of abortions and their reticence to include these figures in reports such as the ones which list the leading causes of death among Americans. It makes one wonder about the politicians who are so outspoken in support for this murderous “choice”. Apparently they are pandering to the wicked desires of their constituents who wish to engage in any of a number of wicked lifestyles without any fear of retribution or responsibility for their actions. It is telling that former President Clinton disingenuously said that abortion ought to be “safe, legal, and rare”. If something is so admittedly immoral that it ought to be “rare”, then the best way to make it rare is for it to be made illegal, no matter how “safe” it may be. It is certainly not “safe” for the 1,300,000 babies who are viciously murdered every year.

Black Christian Americans ought to be especially vocal in their opposition to this outrageous massacre. The largest abortion provider in the world is Planned Parenthood, which was founded by the racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who promoted the idea that non-white races were inferior. The fruit of this ideology is seen in the fact that according to the CDC, 36% of all women who obtained abortions in 2001 were black. This is far out of proportion with the fact that black people only comprise around 13% of the general population. The CDC also reports that “The abortion ratio for black women (491 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (165 per 1,000).” That ratio is astoundingly sad! It means that nearly for every two children who are born to black mothers one other baby is killed by abortion! There should be protests in the street until this wickedness is ended, but instead, black Americans have been overwhelmingly supportive of the major political party which advocates this massacre. Where you find such inconsistencies you are surely to find sin at the root of it.

Holy Scripture frequently describes sin as “darkness” because sin has a blinding effect on those in its grasp. Christ Jesus has a cure for this blindness. He is the cure for this blindness. Jesus calls on all sinners to repent of their sins and look to Him for forgiveness. In John 3:19-21 Jesus describes the situation in this way, “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Christians are the Body of Christ in the world by His grace and we must shed light on such wickedness and sin. The sinners surely are not going to like it, but if we can lead sinners to repentance and also to faith in Jesus then in the end it is much better than burning in hell for eternity. Some may object that not all who practice or seek abortions will burn in hell, but only those who repent of this sin (and all others) and look to Christ for forgiveness will escape the torment of hell.

It really isn’t enough for Christians to say that, “Well, I would never commit adultery or fornication or kill my baby. I don’t want to impose my beliefs on others.” Remember that in the Old Testament when Israel had such ideas God punished the whole nation. And besides, God wants ALL people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). The truth is that abortion in America has gone beyond mass murder, and even beyond genocide. It is fortunate for us that God is “slow to anger” (Num. 14:18) because “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.” (Psalm 130:3-4) God will certainly forgive those who repent of any evil thing, but although God is slow to anger, when his wrath is kindled it is fearsome. Those who wish to remain in their sins are certainly still subject to God’s anger and punishment. If we, as Christians “love one another” as Jesus loves us then we ought to vehemently condemn sins such as abortion as the wicked things that they are so that the sinners may repent and find forgiveness in Jesus. God is a forgiving God who sent His own Son to be our savior. Jesus willingly sacrificing His life that we might be spared God’s eternal wrath. We can also show the world that through the grace of God even the fruits of adultery (children) can be a tremendous blessing from God to people who love Him.