A report on the global evolution of abortions-related murders between 1973 and 2025 estimates that during these 53 years approximately 3.2 billion deaths occurred worldwide.
The document establishes a range of 2.9 to 3.6 billion and uses this figure to make a comparison with the major mortality episodes recorded in human history.
According to the analysis, the accumulated number of abortions during the period far exceeds the estimates of deaths from conflicts and other major historical tragedies, and is even 20 times greater than the total death toll from all wars in recorded human history.
The report
The report presents the comparison as a way to dimension the scale reached by this massacre worldwide.
Abortions per year
The annual evolution also shows an increase in estimates throughout the analyzed period. Between 1973 and 1979, around 46 million abortions per year were estimated. For the period 1990-1994, the average had risen to about 54 million annually.
Subsequently, between 2005 and 2009, the estimate rose to approximately 66 million abortions per year, while between 2020 and 2024 the highest level presented in the report was reached, with about 76 million annually.
The report clarifies that the figures come from different models and records. The main estimates correspond to Guttmacher/WHO models developed by Bearak and other researchers, while previously published estimates are also included.
The report
The comparison with wars
The report places the 2.9 to 3.6 billion estimated abortions between 1973 and 2025 against different historical mortality episodes. According to the collected data, all wars in recorded history, between 3000 B.C. and 1990 A.D., would account for between 151 and 460 million deaths.
The comparison also includes World War II, with an estimate of between 70 and 85 million dead, and the communist famine caused by the Great Leap Forward in China, between 1958 and 1962, with between 30 and 45 million victims.
In other cases, the document records between 15 and 22 million deaths for World War I and approximately 17 million victims for the totality of the killings perpetrated by the Nazi regime. Within this last figure, it estimates around 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
Based on these figures, the report argues that the accumulated volume of abortions-related murders estimated over the last five decades reaches a scale that exceeds even 20 times the total mortality balance of all wars in history.
The abortion calculations cited in the document are primarily based on research by Bearak et al., published in Studies in Family Planning and The Lancet Global Health, in addition to earlier works by Henshaw and Sedgh et al.
For historical comparisons, research and records from Eckhardt, M. White, Yang Jisheng, Dikötter, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are used.
