(ZENIT News / Washington, 08.21.2025).- New figures circulating this week have reignited one of America’s most polarizing debates: the scale of abortion and its impact on an entire generation. According to statistical analyses drawn from the Guttmacher Institute, roughly 28 percent of Generation Z in the United States — nearly one in three — never made it to birth. The numbers, based on estimates of abortions performed between 1997 and 2011, suggest that approximately 19.5 million unborn children from that generational cohort were lost to abortion. By comparison, the Census Bureau estimates about 69.3 million Gen Z Americans living today. The near symmetry between these two realities has startled commentators and stirred fresh moral, political, and cultural discussions. International comparisons underscore the trend. The World Health Organization’s latest global data shows that about 29 percent of pregnancies worldwide end in abortion, a figure echoed in the latest statistics from England and Wales, where nearly 30 percent of conceptions in 2022 were terminated — the highest proportion ever recorded there. Public voices across the ideological spectrum have seized upon these figures. Dutch political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek, who entered the Catholic Church after long opposing abortion on moral and philosophical grounds, insisted that some truths cannot be repeated enough. “Scientifically, intellectually, morally, there is only one consistent argument: life begins at conception,” she said, describing abortion as the taking of “the most innocent life on earth.” For Vlaardingerbroek, the fragility and dignity of unborn life demands recognition, even when society resists confronting the reality. Others frame the issue in sharper political terms. American author and activist Angela Stanton-King, in a recent interview shared by journalist Lara Logan, accused the Democratic Party of exploiting abortion as a way of avoiding social reform. Citing a controversial incident in which an abortion bus appeared outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, she condemned what she described as “human sacrifices on site.” For Stanton-King, the image of predominantly Black women entering that bus stood in stark contradiction to the movement proclaiming that “Black lives matter.” The debate comes at a paradoxical moment for the United States. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, many states have enacted total bans on abortion, while others have expanded access. Yet, according to Guttmacher’s most recent studies, the overall number of abortions nationwide has risen to its highest point in more than a decade. The trend suggests that legal restrictions alone have not curbed the practice, leaving deeper cultural and ideological divisions unresolved. What is emerging, then, is not merely a legal battle but a broader moral reckoning. For some, the statistics highlight a crisis of human dignity that laws alone cannot solve. For others, they reveal entrenched inequalities that drive women toward abortion in the first place. In either case, the revelation that nearly one-third of an entire generation is missing from the country’s demographic story ensures that abortion will remain not just a policy dispute, but a defining question of America’s cultural identity. Thank you for reading our content. If you would like to receive ZENIT’s daily e-mail news, you can subscribe for free through this link.