According to available data, birthrates in the United States have steadily declined from a rate of about twelve live births per female of childbearing age during the eighteenth century to a current rate of less than two. Plotted on a graph, the birthrate trend-line follows a slope steadily downward with only one deviation - the period associated with World War II known as the Baby Boom.
Demographers date the Baby Boom in the US at various times, but from a statistical perspective the birthrate rose above the trend-line in 1940 and increased steadily to a peak around 1955-56, then declined back to the trend-line after 1964. During that twenty-five year period, approximately 33,971,000 babies were born (US Census Bureau, Table 53, Statistical Abstract of the United States (1970), p. 47). Births during that period produced a generation of men and women who went on to lead one of the most creative periods in human history.
In 1973, abortion was legalized in the United States with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (410 US 113 (1973)). Following that decision, the rate of reported abortions rose from 0 in the 1970s to approximately 1.5 million procedures in 1980. Thereafter, the rate declined to approximately 1 million per year, where it has remained since. From the time abortion was legalized through 2011, a total of approximately 40 million abortions were performed (See, Trends in Abortion in the United States - 2011, Guttmacher Institute (January 2014)).
Think about that for a moment.
Abortion has eliminated a generation the size of the Baby Boom generation. And with it, the creativity, ingenuity, and advancement that generation might have produced.
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