• Abortions in Taiwan outnumber live births two to one. Forty percent of those abortions are in the third trimester (Taiwan Church News, newsletter of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Sept-Oct. 2001).
• In December, France's highest appeals court ruled that children with Down's Syndrome have a legal right never to have been born and can sue doctors that attended the pregnancy (Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 7, 2001).
• Demand for invitro fertilization is very high in China because the high incidence of abortion in that country results in an inordinately high percentage (10%) of sterility in couples (Xinhua News Agency, Dec. 5, 2001).
• Viet Nam, a country that has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, is drafting legislation in an effort to stop couples from using abortion to select the sex of their children (Reuters, Nov. 16, 2001).
• The U.N. Children's Fund claims that 1.25 million teenagers in industrialized countries become pregnant each year, and two fifths of those pregnancies end in abortion (South African Press Assoc. on News24.com, Dec. 1, 2001).
• There are an estimated 50 million abortions worldwide each year (Alan Guttmacher Institute, Apr. 2001).
• Abortions in the United States number 1.33 million a year. Forty-seven percent are repeat abortions. In the city where I go to church, Washington, D.C., abortions outnumber live births. An estimated 43% of women will have at least one abortion by the time they are 45 years old (also from AGI, Apr. 2001).

Abortion is a worldwide problem of epidemic proportions
Abortion is a worldwide moral problem in our age. This sample of the information I gleaned from publications that come regularly across my desk shows that abortion is epidemic. Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in the data is that not only are the numbers very high but also that there is virtually no unacceptable reason to have an abortion. The Alan Guttmacher Institute reports that 75% of American women who choose abortion do so because "having a baby would interfere with work, school or other responsibilities."

The problem of abortion needs a response from the church that offers an alternative to women
The figures are an indictment of the church's timid regard of abortion as too sensitive a subject to address. Our General Assembly's current abortion policy says that the church "[has] neither the wisdom nor the authority to address or decide each situation," meaning those situations in which abortion decisions are made. The statement is a terrible abdication of the church's responsibility to apply the Gospel to the most pressing circumstances of life in preaching, teaching and pastoral care ministry.

It is not sloganizing to point out that every abortion results in the death of a child. And it is becoming increasingly evident that abortion is a high risk proposition for a woman's physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health as well. Especially in a world where abortion is commonplace, where too many people now regard it as just another medical procedure, the church needs to find the courage to tell the truth, and to help women find alternative solutions to problem pregnancies.

• Psalm 127:3