Media Note 5M ‘Assisted’ Births Since 1978, Ignore 36M Abortions

Since 1978, science helped create 5 million babies; abortion killed 7 times as many.

Believe it or not, the media is celebrating births, as they recently noted that 5 million “assisted reproductive” births since have occurred 1978.

But while they’re cheering the productivity of the chemically enhanced and scientifically tweaked stork, it would be nice to mention how busy the vulture has been during the same period – 36 million U.S. children were aborted during those years. 

Outlets including USA Today, Time, CBS,  NBC and NBC’s “Today” (Oct. 16) applauded “assisted reproductive technologies” (ART), such as the IVF method and surrogacy, for helping produce 5 million babies worldwide since 1978. 

The International Committee for the Monitoring of Assisted Reproductive Technology announced the estimated five million during the International Federation of Fertility Societies 21st World Congress on Fertility and Sterility and the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Justice.

To commemorate the event, both CBS and TIME cited International Federation of Fertility Societies Board member Richard Kennedy as he explained the “great medical success story.” “The number of babies born through ART is now about the same as the population of a U.S. state such as Colorado, or a country such as Lebanon or Ireland,” Kennedy concluded. 

On the other hand, aborted American babies since 1978 equal a country more populated than Canada, or, in Kennedy calculations, roughly 7 Irelands. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 36 million abortions in the U.S. during the same time period (1978present). 

But we’ll never hear that number in the media, which censor the pro-life movement, from networks refusing to utter the word “life” and deeming doomed babies “fetuses” to dedicating a measly 17 seconds to cover a 500,000-strong March for Life in Washington, D.C.

— Katie Yoder is Staff Writer, Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media at the Media Research Center. Follow Katie Yoder on Twitter.