Abortion was the leading cause of death worldwide once again in 2024, more than cancer, HIV, traffic fatalities and suicide combined. Total deaths from abortion were 45.1 million unborn babies.
Abortion accounted for just over 42% of human deaths around the world in 2024. The death toll of 45.1 million unborn children was more than the total military and civilian deaths in the First World War, 1914-18.
“This is a worldwide war on the unborn”, said SPUC. “No memorial can attest to the brutality of abortion or the true loss of innocence every day, every minute, every second.”
According to data compiled by Worldometer, abortion in 2024 easily outstripped deaths from communicable diseases (12.9 million), cancer (8.2 million) and smoking (5 million), while there were 1.35 million deaths from traffic accidents.
Abortion data was sourced from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The latest statistics for the UK reveals that there were over a quarter of a million abortions in England and Wales in 2022.
Over ten million unborn babies have been killed in the UK by abortion since the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act.
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “Abortion goes hand in hand with the steady brutalisation of societies around the world. Life is increasingly threatened and viewed as cheap, not least because abortion treats unborn lives as unworthy of life, as a nuisance rather than a blessing.
“It’s important that we look beyond these statistics and view every unborn death as a precious person robbed of their right to life. While they might remain nameless, we mourn them and the futures they were denied.
“The ongoing tragedy is that millions of unborn babies continue to be treated as the ‘problem’ rather than the solution. This miserable, ultimately life-denying worldview has spread across the world, infecting institutions and leaders and preying on the fears of mothers.
“If we are to make the world a better place, then the first and most righteous place to start is from the beginning, from the womb, one child at a time. That is what it means to be pro-life in 2025. Let us begin.”
