The Virginia Center for Health Statistics has released its annual tabulation of abortions in Virginia. The latest list, for the year 2000, shows at total of 27,999 “induced terminations of pregnancy,” an increase of 2.4% over the 27,354 reported in 1999. Prior to 1998, the number of Virginia abortions had been decreasing, or approximately holding steady, for more than a decade. Between 1998 and 2000, the number of annual abortions went up 7.2%.

The largest number of abortions was in Northern Virginia, 10,713, followed by the 8,324 in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area, and 6,163 in the area around Richmond.

On the average, one innocent baby is killed intentionally before birth, here in Virginia, every nineteen minutes of every day of the year.

Published in VSHL Lifesaver, August 2002