Abortion was leading cause of death in 2018

With almost 42 million deaths recorded, abortion was the leading cause of death in 2018, according to one worldwide data source.

According to the website Worldometers, there are about 125,000 abortions performed every day around the world. As of Monday morning, the site’s running tally showed there were over 41.9 million abortions performed in 2018.

That estimate represents a substantial decrease from the WHO’s estimate of 56 million worldwide abortions every year from 2010 to 2014.

Abortion dwarfed other causes of death, according to the site.

About 8.2 million people died from cancer, with almost 5 million due to smoking and almost 1.7 million of HIV/AIDS. The data comes from the World Health Organization.

Worldometers — voted one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA) — keeps a running tally through the year of major world statistics, including population, births, deaths, automobiles produced, books published, and CO2 emissions.