Guatemala
World Ranking: Unavailable
Abortion is believed to be widespread, but lack of official data prevents it from being ranked in the worldwide abortion statistics.
The Scale of the Crisis
Caribbean/Latin America Estimated Abortion Rate
44
The abortion rate is the number of women out of every 1000, age 15-39, that had an abortion in a single year.
Guatemala has strong prolife laws protecting the unborn. Nonetheless, there is a general belief that abortion is widespread. Some support for this belief is provided by The Lancet, which reports, surprisingly, that the Caribbean/Latin America region records an abortion rate of 44. For comparison, the same study shows the rate in Asia, known to be extremely high, at 36.
Highest Global Abortion Rates*
The abortion rate is the number of women out of every 1000, age 15-39, that had an abortion in a single year.
Abortion Data Source
 |
Worldwide, official abortion statistics are under-reported and incomplete. In some cases, like Guatemala, no data is available. In India, (by most estimates, second only to China in abortion numbers) official data is too incomplete to use. Our data source is the Abortion Worldwide Report (AWR) [Informe Mundial del Aborto (IMA)] (Jacobson and Johnston, 2018). They provide reported and estimated abortions by year for 110 countries and other areas through 2015. You can find updates to this data here. |
The Work
PassionLife teams traveled to Guatemala for the first time in 2019 to promote the Gospel of Life among pastors and to introduce church leaders to models of pregnancy help ministry. About 300 pastors and leaders have been trained.
Simplified, reproducible resources on biblical bioethics, prolife apologetics and crisis pregnancy intervention are translated and circulating freely in Spanish.
The Impact
Plans are being made now for a 2021 “Children’s Day Campaign” or a similar rapidly reproducing training strategy.
The Challenge
Guatemala’s strong prolife values have made them the target of globalists organizations. The government is under steady pressure to liberalize their laws on abortion, contraception, and marriage.
If the Church does not stand confidently for life and provide compassionate help for those in crisis, the current protections will be swept away. Pray for them to stand strong!
Where abortion is most concentrated, you are most needed…
Three ways YOU can advance the work:
Connect
Do you have connections in Guatemala? You can send them Gospel of Life Spanish resources and introduce us to them or encourage them to reach out to Mark Nicholson at mnicholson@passionlife.org.
Who knows? You may open a door for advancing a new work in one of the neediest places on earth!
Give
Your gift to PassionLife will advance the work in Guatemala, where we continue to partner with local Christians to spur them on to rescue the innocent by helping mothers in crisis.
Sign Up & Pray
Join the PassionLife newsletter to see the impact of your gift and pray for the progress and challenges faced by our Guatemalan brothers and sisters.