The impact of Roe v Wade

It’s been 53 years since the Supreme Court issued the Roe v Wade decision. Along with its companion decision, Bolton v Roe, the decisions legalized abortion and negated most state regulations in place.

What has been the impact of Roe v Wade on the U.S.?

Let’s take a look.

Q. How many babies have been aborted in the U.S. since the 1973 Roe decision?

A. According to the pro-choice Guttmacher institute, 63 million legal abortions have occurred. Tracking the incidence of chemical abortions is difficult, so the actual number is probably much higher.

Q. How has that affected our country’s birth rate?

A. The U.S. fertility birthrate in 1972, the year before the Roe decision, was 2.01. It declined to 1.62 by 2023. “This number represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with age-specific rates of the specified years,” according to Macrotrends. The replacement birthrate is 2.1.

Q. The Roe decision ushered in an era of ‘reproductive freedom’ as demanded by the feminist movement. Did this newfound freedom make women happier?

A. The 2024 American Family Survey revealed conservative, pro-life women were three times happier than liberal, pro-choice women:

“We found that 37% of conservative women reported being “completely satisfied” with life, whereas only 12% of liberal women did. Young conservative women are three times as likely to report being very satisfied with life compared to young liberal women. Moreover, liberal women are two to three times more likely to report they are “not satisfied” with their lives, compared to conservative women. And consistent with previous research, the effect of ideology on young women’s happiness held up to controls for age, education, race, and income.” 

The impact of Roe v Wade: 

• Our country has been weakened demographically to the point where we are no longer able to replace ourselves without immigration;
• We’ve wiped out, via abortion, a population equivalent to California and New York combined.
• We’ve made women unhappier in the process.

In other words, the impact has been disastrous.