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Abortion advocates have pointed to the economic advantages stemming from abortion as justification for the heinous act. However, an article in the February 1999 edition of The Family in America, reported that the 1973 Supreme Court decision in the case of Roe v. Wade has not been as economically advantageous for the American economy as it may appear at first.
In "Worse Than Black Friday," Holden Jones (the pseudonym for a stockbroker residing in Massachusetts) reported U.S. taxpayers have spent $10 billion since 1973 to fund abortion providing agencies that have performed more than 35 million abortions in that time period. Further, it costs approximately $250,000 dollars to provide a child with food, housing, clothing, and education during the years he or she is still unprepared to contribute to society's economic wellbeing. In addition to that cost, federal, state, and local governments incur $170,000 in public obligations for each child. When the $420,000 that would have been spent on each aborted child is compared with the mere $100 it cost to abort it, the savings is over $400,000 dollars per aborted child. That amounts to an apparent total savings of more than $14 trillion.
Until the year 1993, the abortion of those babies did, in fact, result in tremendous economic savings, according to Jones. However, in 1993 children aborted as a result of the Roe v. Wade decision would have started becoming income-producing adults. Jones says statistics reveal that the average twenty-year-old will earn $30,000 dollars during his or her first year of employment. During the forty-five years of employment, that worker will earn a cumulative salary of $2,865,044. Assuming typical inflation and interest rates, the total lifetime contribution of that twenty-year-old to the economy will be approximately $691,000. Because of the abortions since Roe v. Wade, the economy will be deprived of $691,000 over 35 million times – about $25 trillion!
That is $25 trillion that will never be poured into business. A financial loss of that magnitude is comparable to the Dow Jones Average dropping from 40,000 to zero. The article continues that by the year 2020, the lost wages of aborted babies will have exceeded the 1996 market value of Forbes 500 by nearly five times.
But in addition to these private sector losses consider what 35 million abortions will cost the government.
[2]By the year 2020 forgone revenue to the Internal Revenue Service will approach $900 billion annually. By that time, Jones reminds us, the huge Boomer generation will be elderly, yet there will be 35 million fewer people in the next generation to help fund Medicare and Social Security. According to Jones, with the lost $900 billion annually, a Medicare and Social Security crisis seems eminent. Even if the government borrows money to make up for the lost tax dollars, the interest alone will soar up to $570 billion by 2020. He concludes that when one considers the already shaky financial situation of Medicare and Social Security, it requires unrealistic optimism to believe that Baby Boomers will be able to receive full medical and retirement benefits in their elderly years.
Of course, these numbers will matter most to those driven by economic issues. For those who share God's values, the tragedy of murdering more than 35 million innocent lives cannot be so easily calculated.