Why murder rates for children less than a year old have doubled

It could be that the teaching power of abortion law is eroding more than the moral sense of doctors. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infant homicide is shockingly common. Its most recent 2002 report suggests that the day a person is born is, by far, the most likely day for them to be killed.

Although more recent statistics concerning day-of-birth homicides are unavailable, a look at homicide rates during the first year of life suggests that infant homicides have become considerably more common since Roe v Wade constitutionalized the right to abortion. According to the Child Trends Databank using data from the CDC and the NCHS, children less than a year old are roughly twice as likely to be victims of homicide today as in 1970 (a few years before Roe). In 1970, there were 4.3 homicides for every 100,000 children under age one. The rate peaked at 9.2 in 2000 and was at 7.9 in 2010.

For babies killed just after birth, the CDC report suggests Gosnell-style abortions are not the big threat: Mothers are, most frequently adolescents with a history of mental illness. After the first week, the killers are most often male caretakers, often unrelated to the baby. Perhaps both groups learned the lessons of our abortion laws a bit too well.

Though this possibility does not excuse doctors or parents who kill a child, it does help explain how some would end up with the idea that doing so was permissible. And while it may be more comfortable to ignore the similarity between the fetuses Gosnell legally “aborted” and those he illegally “murdered,” at least Planned Parenthood recognizes that there is little difference. This is presumably why Planned Parenthood opposes legislation protecting children born during failed abortions, out of fear that if those babies are protected, the similar babies we allow to be killed inside the womb might have to be protected, too.