The World Wildlife Fund released its annual “Living Planet Report” subtitled “A system in peril.” The report states that “nature is being lost – with huge implications for us all,” asserting “biodiversity sustains human life and underpins our society.” We cannot help but wonder why there are no international organizations or agencies releasing similar reports decrying the systemic extermination of preborn children throughout the world. The WWF is right to be worried about conservation of animals, and the effects of pollution and other human activity on coral reefs and rainforests, but why is no international organization worried about the “ecosystem” that endangers preborn children through permissive abortion laws and the lack of supports for families? What would such a report look like?
As of the writing of this editorial on Oct. 23, according to the Wordometer website, there were 36,566,168 abortions committed in the world in 2024. That is about one abortion every second. About 75 per cent of the world’s women live in countries that permit abortion, including 77 countries that allow abortion-on-demand. Just 21 countries outlaw abortion. The Philippines is the largest such country followed by a handful of Central American, African, Asian and Oceanic, countries such as Honduras and El Salvador, Senegal and Sierra Leone, Iraq and Laos, and Tonga and Palau. This is occurring against a backdrop of rapidly declining fertility rates around the globe, with a majority of countries now having sub-replacement fertility rates (2.1), and almost every country’s fertility rate trendline heading downward.
The WWF report says that to protect biodiversity, the global energy, finance, and food systems must be transformed. The WWF says, “redirecting finance away from harmful activities and toward business models and activities that contribute to the global goals on nature, climate, and sustainable development is essential to ensuring a habitable and thriving planet.” A world report on the preborn could likewise call on the United Nations and individual country foreign aid programs to cease financing abortion and contraception globally and to fund systems that encourage and welcome the creation of new human life. Just as many animal species are endangered by human activity, preborn children are endangered by permissive abortion laws, anti-natal cultural sentiment, and labour practices that incentivize corporate climbing over family formation.
If pandas and other wildlife are worthy of protection, certainly preborn humans are, too.
