Talk about rare

One thing I find so interesting about the pro-choice movement's furor over South Dakota's law banning abortion is that prolife groups, if they wanted, could use the same rhetoric that opponents of the ban on partial-birth abortion often use.

From the beginning of the debate over partial-birth abortion, prolifers were and are continually told that partial-birth abortions are rare and they account for less than 1% of all abortions. In the shadow of America's 1.3 million abortions a year, 3,000 to 5,000 partial-birth abortions certainly seem like a small issue to some.

The whole purpose of the "partial-birth abortions are rare" line was to minimize the importance of the ban. As if to say, "These abortions are so rare, do we even need to talk about them?"

But what about the rarity of South Dakota's abortions? According to South Dakota's health department there were only 814 abortions performed in South Dakota in 2004. That's 0.00063 % of the abortions performed in the United States in a given year. This means that South Dakota's ban on abortion would only effect six of every ten thousand abortions. Talk about rare.

What would the pro-choice response be if a prolife debater channeled Kate Michelman and said, "For the record, let me note that 99% of abortions in this country aren't performed in the combined states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota. The abortions at issue here (abortions performed in South Dakota) are essentially a subset of that other one percent of abortions. It is rare."