This life imposes a moral obligation on its parents to preserve it. Abortion is seen by the Church as being tantamount to murder. In the United States, about 1.6 million pregnancies end in abortion. Woman with incomes under eleven thousand are over three times more likely to abort than those with incomes above twenty-five thousand. Unmarried women are four to five times more likely to abort than married women are, and the abortion rate has doubled for eighteen and nineteen year olds. Recently the U.S. rate dropped six percent overall but the rate of abortions among girls younger than fifteen jumped eighteen percent.
About forty percent of Americans believe that abortion should remain legal and forty percent believe that it should be banned except when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother or is the result of rape or incest. In addition, fifteen percent believe that it should be illegal in all cases. However, abortion is considered murder by half of all