How many abortions, legal and illegal, are performed annually, nationally and worldwide? The answer depends upon whom you ask and whether the data come from the United States or from developing nations. More important, it depends on the assumptions, methodology and honesty of those compiling the numbers. Recent research calls into question data that heretofore had been considered authoritative.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), named for the former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is the think tank of Planned Parenthood. AGI is known for its good data in the United States, but it has generated inflated numbers of illegal abortions in developing countries for years. One can only surmise that there is a political agenda at work to generate a demand for making abortion legal, thereby, so the argument goes, increasing the safety of abortions and raising the level of women’s reproductive health. AGI advocates making abortion legal to reduce maternal mortality. To make this point, it is deemed necessary to report extremely large numbers of illegal abortions that threaten women’s lives.

A recent study done in Mexico shows just how inflated AGI’s numbers can be: In 2006, a year before abortions were legalized in Mexico, AGI estimated there were 725,070 to 1,024,424 illegal abortions. Yet in 2007, the actual number of abortions performed (then legally) was 10,137. AGI’s estimate was 70 to 100 times the actual number.

In 2009, AGI estimated the number of legal abortions in the Federal District of Mexico at 122,455, but the actual number was 12,221. AGI overestimated the number of abortions by 10 times.

It appears that in AGI’s quest to have “safe, legal abortions” under the guise of reducing maternal mortality rates in every nation on earth, it inflated the number of illegal abortions to make it appear there is a definite need to make abortion legal to protect the women undergoing all those abortions. It should be noted that a study done in Chile found that even after abortion became illegal in 1989, maternal mortality rates continued to drop steadily. It does not necessarily follow that making abortion legal alone decreases maternal mortality.

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