The deadly years.

THE DEADLY YEARS

The official statistics on American life expectancy reflect an increasingly healthy populace, with average life expectancy rising from 71.2 years in 1972 to 74.6 in 1982. But this rosy picture is subject to one serious qualification: it depends upon a particular, and by no means universally accepted, definition of human life.

Following the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the number of legal abortions in the U.S. has risen rapidly: by the early Eighties the ratio of abortions to live births in this country was over 0.4 to 1. If the abortion rate is taken into consideration in computing life expectancy, a different picture emerges altogether. The table shows the effect of treating abortions as neo-natal mortalities. Life expectancy drops from over sixty for a baby conceived in 1972 to under 52 for one conceived in 1982.

There are a number of possible objections to this method. First, it takes induced abortions into account, but not miscarriages. Second, it presumes an infant-mortality rate of zero for embryos that were not aborted; in reality, mothers opting for abortion often fall into groups with higher-than-average risks of infant mortality. Third, it does not take into account the inevitable replacement of "underground" abortions by legal abortions once restrictions are relaxed, thereby overstating the actual rise in total abortions.

Even with these problems, the table may nevertheless provide a good first approximation of the effects of legalized abortion. For greater accuracy, the table also takes into account the substitution of legal for underground abortions, using 0.3 and 0.5 substitution factors.

The figures are rough, but the picture is clear: if pre-natal homicides are taken into account, America's life expectancy drops well below that of Mexico to the level of Third World countries like Kenya or Mongolia.