"The evolution of the birth control pill from pure contraceptive to frequent abortifacient poses important questions to pro-life activists. Many women (including pro-lifers) who would never even consider a surgical abortion now use low-dose birth control pills that cause them to abort on an average of once or twice every year. A large number of pro-life women use these pills, and these are usually the women who cannot seem to make the connection between contraception and abortion in their minds. These women and their husbands are employing a self-defense mechanism known as denial, and this eventually causes their entire pro-life philosophy to unravel. Ironically, the average pro-abortion woman has at most two or three surgical abortions during her childbearing years, while the average 'pro-life' woman on the Pill for ten years aborts at least ten times. Some researchers (using very conservative figures) have calculated that the birth control pill directly causes between 1.53 and 4.15 million chemical abortions per year between one and two and a half times the total number of surgical abortions committed in this country every year!"