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online format. Janice Shaw Crouse on Abortion 30 Years After Roe
v. Wade One of the most important abortion mantras is “make
abortion safe, legal, and rare.” It is legal, but it is not
necessarily safe, and it is certainly not rare. The United
States has the highest legal abortion rate among Western
nations. Over one million children are aborted in the United
States every year. It is not rare among American women. Since
Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the United States in 1973,
over 40 million abortions have been performed. In 1973, out of
46.8 million women of childbearing age (ages 14–44), there were
745,000 abortions. By 1996, with 60.4 million women of
childbearing age (ages 15–44), there were 1,366,000 abortions.
Abortion is not rare even among teenagers. The United States has
the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. Four in ten young
women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of
20—nearly one million a year. In 1997,