On the 46th anniversary of the court cases Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, we remember the 59 million lives lost to induced abortion since January 22, 1973.
Large numbers like 59 million can be difficult to wrap your brain around, because there aren’t many tangible examples of numbers that large. Let’s give it a try, though. Here’s a few examples of what the number 59 million could compare to.
If each person lost to abortion was represented by 1 second of silence, this would take 683 days— nearly two years—of silence.
If each person lost to abortion was represented by one square mile, the space needed would be 2 million square miles more than the land area of the globe.
Though 59 million people can’t realistically be in one physical place, millions can come together through the World Wide Web. Millions of people can be united in one interest or follow the same celebrity on social media. President Trump, for example, has around 57 million followers on Twitter. The missing 59 million people could double his Twitter account.
One physical space that does give a comparable example of millions of people together is large cities. On the crowded streets of a city like New York, you can barely stretch out your arm without it hitting someone else. Even then, it is impossible to visualize how many people are really in the entire city. But imagine for a moment the busy streets, packed coffee shops and restaurants, and sky-high office, hotel, and apartment buildings in some of the world’s most popular cities: Beijing, Tokyo, London, Paris, Los Angeles, and New York. Now realize: the entire population of these six famous cities combined comes to roughly 3 million people less than the missing 59 million.
If the people in these cities all disappeared from one cause, would the world pay attention? Because they had faces that were visible, and they could make sounds you might hear? Or would there still be some who made excuses, saying that the world was overpopulated anyway, or that so many of those people probably lived in poverty or with disabilities, and led worthless lives anyway?
Let us be the first to pay attention and stand up for the 59 million lives lost and be the first to recognize the sanctity of every human life.
Chris Gast
Director of Communication/Education