While many people talk about the large number of Americans who have lost their lives in service in the war in Iraq (4,041), we tend to be one-dimensional in our thinking about the numbers of the dead. I say this because many who are focused on the high numbers of deaths overseas in war are not noticing a huge tragedy that is unfolding right in front of them and at a faster rate.

According to the CDC, in 2004, 839,226 unborn American babies lost their lives in abortion (and the number was actually significantly larger, since four states, including California, refused to report the number of abortions performed there). This amounts to an average of at least 2,299 per day. And in the time that it took to spend two days of news cycles covering the testimony of General David Petraeus, the number of American unborn babies killed during that two-day cycle is higher than the number of Americans killed so far in Iraq.

From March 20, 2003 until April 10, 2008 (1,848 days) there have been 4,041 deaths of already-born Americans. This is an average of 2.18 tragic deaths per day in Iraq

As of the last known statistics, 839,226 unborn Americans are aborted in a year. This is an average of 2,299.24 tragic deaths per day on U.S. soil

I wish that many of the people who are outraged at the deaths overseas were also outraged at these deaths that we have in our country. After all, when either an already-born person dies or an unborn person dies, the future population is reduced by one. In either case there will be one human being who has incalculable value and ability to contribute and touch people's lives who will not be here to do so. And in almost every situation, an abortion involves the termination of a human life whose heart has already started beating (since the heart begins to beat one week after the first missed period).

But, unfortunately, a number of the people who have been the most vocal about the horrible deaths from the war have supported the process which has led to the far greater number of deaths of the unborn. And, from the math, in the same time period that 4,041 already-born Americans have tragically been killed in the war, about 4,249,012 unborn Americans have been killed through abortion. That's more than one thousand times as many!!

That's such a shocking number that I have to repeat it. Since the first bombs dropped on Iraq in the opening of the Iraq War on March 20, 2003, there have been more than 4.2 million abortions of unborn babies - just in the U.S alone.

Abortion doesn't happen for the reasons its proponents tell us it happens. Only a relatively small minority (20%) of abortion patients are under 20 years of age. Only an extremely small number (1-2%) are rape victims. Every bit of statistical evidence seems to suggest that, more than anything else, regardless of how much thought, agony or intense consideration goes into the decision to abort, the primary reasons for the huge number of abortions have to do with some level of personal convenience.

To support this observation, here is some context from the Time Almanac 2004 edition on page 549:

"On Average, women give at least three reasons for choosing abortion: three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school, or other responsibilities; about two-thirds say that they cannot afford a child; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner."

In addition, the following information was obtained from a report published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice organization, which cites a survey of abortion patients who were willing to provide information about why they were choosing to abort. The most common reasons cited by abortion proponents - rape/incest and the life or health of the mother being at stake - are among the least common reasons for abortion. Most abortion patients cited issues that dealt with the level of personal inconvenience that a pregnancy and rearing of a child would bring. And if the mothers chose to offer the babies for adoption instead of aborting, it's difficult to imagine that the impact many of the reasons ("can't afford a baby now", "done with childbearing," "not ready for a child") would not be diminished by the fact that the mother would not be raising the child after birth.

Reason Given Percentage of respondents who gave this reason for having an abortion Having a baby would dramatically change my life 74% Can't afford a baby now 73% Don't want to be a single mother/relationship problems 48% Done with childbearing 38% Not ready for a child (or another child) 32% Don't want people to know I had sex or am pregnant 25% Don't feel mature enough to raise a child (or another child) 22% Husband/partner wants me to abort 14% Possible health problem with my unborn baby 13% I have physical health problems 12% My parents want me to abort 6% I was a victim of rape 1% I was a victim of incest 0.5%

Furthermore, the CDC report mentions that from the information they gathered regarding previous abortions had by 2004 abortion patients, 25.2% of them had one previous abortion, 11% had two previous abortions 7.7% had three previous abortions and 2.4% had an unknown number of previous abortions. What this all adds up to is that for many who have abortions, the baby is an inconvenience and not a threat to their life or health. And for many, it appears that abortion is being treated as a form of birth control of last resort.

The point here isn't in any way to condemn people who have been involved in abortions in the past. It is probably true that most of us have some involvement in abortion (since nearly half of women of childbearing age either have had or will have abortions and it takes two people to conceive a child. And in some cases, these patients were coerced by others into having abortions). The people who do this are us, as well as our wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. This is a national problem and almost all of us have contributed to an environment that has allowed this to happen. And besides all of this, no one can go back in time and undo something that they later come to regret. None of us can go back in time and change anything that has happened in the past, just as we as a nation can't go back in time and undo a war. But what we can do is to reevaluate our perspectives on the controversial topic of abortion. Because most pro-choice and pro-life people can at least agree that abortion should not be happening at the rate that it is. Abortion may be "safe" (though not for the aborted child and not always for the mother) and legal. But abortion is anything but rare.

According to the 2004 rates, from today until the end of 2008, there will be 609,301 more unborn babies whose lives will be ended through abortion on U.S. soil. And to be morally consistent, if we're concerned about the lives of already-born Americans who are killed overseas, we must also be concerned about the lives of many more Americans who will be born within the next nine months if they are allowed to be.

We will be debating Iraq and all the horrible casualties for some time to come. But within a matter of  a mere couple of days, we are killing more of our own children than any insurgent in a foreign land could ever hope to do. And we need to stop.