During a clear out of old work papers and files recently, I came across a paper that stopped me in my tracks. It took just a moment to look through and understand, and be moved. The paper shows the power of visual representation and messaging over (often) dry statistics and percentages.
The visual representation following needs little more introduction than the title and barely needs a follow up comment. The message is clear and powerful. One point to note is that the graphic is based on US data and the figure of 45 million in the US increased to 55 million by 2012
It takes just a click to follow through to this page. And it will take just seconds to look through:
Abortion Deaths compared to War Deaths
I’m sure a graph of UK data would not be too dissimilar. In two previous CMF blogs Peter Saunders has compared deaths from abortion with official mortality stats (see here and here), showing some striking differences.
It is surely difficult not to be challenged in some way by this comparison to war deaths. Surely even those who are strongly pro abortion could not condone the scale of deaths from abortion? Unfortunately dry stats can hide not just the scale of numbers, they can also hide from us the personal reality behind the statistics – the life stories of the millions of women, as well as babies, involved.
But we know that their lives have never been hidden from God: ‘My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance….’ (Ps 139: 13-16).