Reporting about the murder of abortionist George Tiller, for example, included misleading
references to the frequency of “late term” abortion in the United States.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute (the former research arm of Planned Parenthood) reported
that abortions of pregnancies at 21 weeks or later comprise about 1.1 percent of
the nation’s abortions, which that same institute also indicates are in the area
of 1.21 million. That means over 13,000 babies a year are killed at 21 weeks or
beyond.
According to the
Center for Disease Control (CDC) statistics, late-term abortions (i.e.,
those of babies 21 weeks or older) are done in many states, which means that
there are more than two or three abortionists who do them. An
L.A. Times story refers to the CDC statistics, which show that in
2005, 8,482 abortions were performed on babies 21 weeks or older, but only 459
of them were done in Kansas. Note that the CDC statistics are lower than the
Guttmacher statistics, because California (in which about a quarter of the
nation’s abortions occur), along with a few other states, do not report their
abortion statistics to the CDC.