The pro-life movement often talks of the science behind life in the womb, the fact that abortion leaves emotional, psychological and physical scars on women and the inherent beauty of every life. What we don’t often talk about, though, is money.
After all, doesn’t it seem somewhat crass to couch pro-life arguments in terms of economic benefit? The reality, though, is that abortion hasn’t impacted our society only in emotional, social, and cultural ways. It’s also impacted our society economically. And one political scientist is now claiming this very thing.
Mark A. Olson, a former liberal community organizer turned pro-life consultant, has published research that abortion in America has cost our nation more than $16 trillion in federal revenue – or approximately the amount of our current national debt.
In a slide presentation summarizing his research, he first notes that the figure of 50 million abortions far under-represents the cumulative population loss due to abortion, which he places at a staggering 126,469,904 as of January 1, 2014.
Based on this number, Olson applies the per capita individual tax burden to the lost population number for each year, a method which he says controls for other demographic variables. His finding: as of January 1, 2014, $15,734,000,000 in federal revenue has been lost due to abortion.
A press release issued today by Olson stated, “Basic macroeconomics says that any such loss in population will result in a collapse of the necessary aggregate supply and demand to sustain long term national economic growth. The population loss due to abortion would have the same negative economic impact as any population loss due to war, epidemic, or natural disaster. “
Olson concludes that the fiscal problems our nation is facing can be solved neither by conservative nor liberal policies – but only through ending abortion on demand.
The reality is that abortion doesn’t ‘only’ kill children. It doesn’t only devastate women. It doesn’t only shock and grieve men. It doesn’t only deaden national conscience and deprave our collective culture. It does all of these, and more.
Certainly, life is sacred apart from economics – and it always will be. And truth be told, waving signs that read “Save a life, save the economy” probably won’t change many minds and hearts.
At the same time, evaluating the impact of abortion without evaluating the resulting economic losses is an incomplete study. Tragically, we know that not even one dollar of that lost $15 trillion is enough to bring back one of the precious lives lost through abortion.
But one thing we can do is make sure that not one more dollar funds the taking of innocent lives – and not one more dollar propagates the lie that abortion does no harm.
