Since abortion reporting in the United States is incomplete and uses different counting methods, any number for “how many babies have been aborted since 1973” is an estimate, not a precise figure.

Quick Scoop

  • A widely cited pro‑life estimate (using Guttmacher Institute data plus adjustments) puts the total number of abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade (1973) at around 63–65 million by the early 2020s.
  • Some recent pro‑life reports now say “more than 65 million” abortions since 1973, reflecting added years of data and projections.
  • Official federal surveillance from the CDC does not give a single historical total; it publishes annual counts and rates that are known to be undercounts because reporting is voluntary and some states do not report.

Put simply: most current estimates from pro‑life organizations suggest on the order of mid‑tens of millions, typically 63–65+ million abortions in the U.S. since 1973 , but this remains an approximation rather than a fully verified exact total.

Why the Numbers Are Estimates

Different data sources:

  • Guttmacher Institute
    • Conducts periodic in‑depth surveys of abortion providers and is often considered the most complete count of clinical abortions.
* Pro‑life groups frequently start from Guttmacher’s annual totals and then apply small percentage “undercount” adjustments to estimate a national total since 1973.
  • CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
    • Publishes Abortion Surveillance reports using data voluntarily submitted by states and jurisdictions.
* Some states, including large ones at various times, **do not report** , so the CDC explicitly notes that its totals are **incomplete**.
  • Advocacy groups and religious outlets
    • Organizations such as National Right to Life Committee and others compile long‑run totals from these datasets and publish cumulative estimates (e.g., 63+ million as of 2021, 65+ million after adding subsequent years).

Because of the missing data (non‑reporting states, self‑managed abortions, abortion pills obtained outside traditional clinics), all of these figures are best understood as approximations , not a definitive final tally.

Typical Pro‑Life Estimate Path (Illustrative)

To give a feel for how people reach numbers like “over 65 million”:

  1. Start with annual abortion totals from the Guttmacher Institute going back to 1973.
  1. Add a small undercount adjustment (for example, 3–5%) to account for abortions that may not have been captured in surveys for earlier decades.
  1. Project or add recent years (including the 2010s–2020s), using either Guttmacher estimates or other compiled sources that show several hundred thousand abortions per year in the 2010s and early 2020s.
  1. Sum these annual totals to produce a cumulative figure , which is how you get approximate totals such as 63 million around 2018–2020 and 65+ million by the early 2020s.

This is why different groups might quote slightly different totals (for example, “63 million,” “64 million,” or “over 65 million”) while talking about the same basic historical period.

Broader Context and Ongoing Discussion

  • Trends over time
    • Abortions in the U.S. rose after legalization in the 1970s, peaked in the 1980s and early 1990s, then generally declined into the 2010s.
* In the last few years, there have been signs of **shifts and partial rebounds** , influenced by factors like access to medication abortion and changes in state laws, especially after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
  • Debate over terminology
    • Some people talk about “babies aborted since 1973,” emphasizing the moral status of the fetus.
    • Others use terms like “pregnancies terminated” or “legal induced abortions” to keep the language closer to medical or legal definitions.
    • The underlying numerical estimates , however, come from the same small group of data sources; the disagreement is primarily over interpretation and ethics rather than the rough scale of the numbers.
  • Online and forum discussions
    • In forums and social media, you may see very broad claims like “a third of a generation was aborted” or similar demographic statements.
* These usually rely on taking cumulative abortion totals and comparing them to generational birth cohorts, which can be rhetorically powerful but are still approximations, not precise demographic reconstructions.

Key Takeaway

If you’re looking for one concise figure that captures what most pro‑life and many media sources currently quote, this is the closest honest summary:

From 1973 to the early 2020s, around 63–65+ million abortions are estimated to have occurred in the United States, depending on how missing data and recent years are handled. This is a large‑scale estimate , not an exact, fully verified count.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.