Title: Was Abortion the 'Leading Cause of Death' in 2018? | Snopes.com
Headings: Was Abortion the ‘Leading Cause of Death’ in 2018?
Was Abortion the ‘Leading Cause of Death’ in 2018?
Leading causes of death worldwide and abortion estimates -- two different measures?
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Content: However, the most recent figure on abortions from WHO we could locate dated from 2014 and was slightly higher than Worldometers’ tally. WHO estimated that between 2010 and 2014, an average of 56 million induced abortions occurred worldwide each year. If WHO’s estimate of 56 million abortions annually held steady through 2016, when they released their survey on the top ten leading causes of death globally, it would be true that the number of abortions worldwide outnumbered overall deaths from heart disease and stroke, the top two causes of death that year. In 2016, ischemic heart disease and stroke killed a total of 15.2 million people worldwide, according to WHO, noting that “These diseases have remained the leading causes of death globally in the last 15 years”: We can infer from WHO statistics that the difference between the number of abortions worldwide versus the number of deaths from heart disease and stroke worldwide is not a new dynamic, although viral stories proclaiming that abortions “now” outnumber deaths from those other causes imply that fact is a recent development. Stating that abortion is the “leading cause of death” worldwide (as opposed to a medical procedure) is a problematic pronouncement, because that stance takes a political position, one which is at odds with the scientific/medical world. The medical community does not confer personhood upon fetuses that are not viable outside the womb, so counting abortion as a “cause of death” does not align with the practices of health organizations such as WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as Heather Boonstra, director of public policy for the reproductive health research organization Guttmacher Institute, told us: Abortion is a legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure in the United States. It’s not considered a cause of death by CDC, WHO and other leading authorities, and statistics on induced abortion are excluded in the CDC’s national fetal-death statistics. The legal, philosophical, religious, and scientific arenas provide no definitive answers as to when personhood begins.