The economic effect of abortion

As we all know, there are so many effects that abortion has on our society and the whole world. What seems to be overlooked is how abortion can hurt the economy. People make the mistake that abortion is solely a moral issue, and therefore cannot be related to the effects of the economy.

In the United States, we have a national debt nearing $16 trillion, which has surpassed the nation’s annual GDP. In other words, our federal government is spending beyond our means. Since abortion was legalized in 1973 by Roe v. Wade, over 50 million babies have died, with over 3,000 killed on a daily basis.

It’s horrible enough that these innocent babies are murdered, but can you imagine how many more contributions those 50 million lives would have made? Perhaps one of those aborted could have found a way to cure AIDS, cancer, or asthma, just to name a few. Plus, with more people contributing to society through work, we would have a higher GDP, which would greatly help reduce the burden of our government spending, which spends about $4 billion daily. Much progress could be made to shore up the social security of the 10,000 individuals who retire every day.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social Security Administration, Guttmacher Institute, and National Center for Health Statistics, if abortion had never been legalized in 1973, more than 17 million people would be employed, resulting in an additional $400 billion from those workers, with $11 billion contributed to Medicare and $47 million contributed to Social Security. Although it is important to also reduce government spending, these added incomes would nevertheless help the country.

It doesn’t take a world-renowned economist to figure out that when you’re decreasing the youth from abortion and with all the baby-boomers retiring, Social Security is going to eventually run out if we continue with abortions and the amount of spending by the federal government. Even though Social Security cannot last forever with the amount of federal spending today, not having abortion would help Social Security last longer, assuming that the amount of federal spending is the same.

In population studies, at least 2.1 kids per household are needed to maintain stable population. The average number of kids per household today is about 2.0 in this country, which isn’t even meeting the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain the population for future generations to come. The slow growth in the United States population seen in recent years is due to immigration and people living longer.

This a problem not only in America, but also around the world, especially for many countries in Europe that have even fewer children per household. During the 1990s is when Europe found a sharp decline in birth rates, with Southern and Eastern Europe’s plummeting below 1.3 kids per household. Worldwide, birthrates have decreased from 6.0 in 1972 to about 2.9 nowadays.

China is also a prominent country to consider, with its one-child policy. Although it has made a big improvement in its economy from the past, it is only a matter of time before the one-child policy has an impact on the Chinese economy, with millions of babies being killed who could have eventually become productive citizens and contributed to Chinese GDP.  China is just one of many countries around the world that is looking at a decline in youth workers, as the U.N. projects the number of factory workers aged 15 to 24 to decline by 27% to 164 million through the year 2025. On the other hand, those over 65 years old will increase by 78% to 195 million during this same time period. Since China implemented its one-child policy in 1979, approximately 400 million babies have been aborted who could have eventually helped contribute to its workforce in the future.

It is evident that abortion has its effects in the U.S. and other areas of the world. Many countries may face this similar trend because of the devastating effects abortion has had, especially for this generation and for generations to come, if things don’t change soon.