Gay marriage kills - and will directly lead to 900,000 more abortions, says US lawyer in post on Heritage Foundation

The conservative attorney claims gay marriage is 'undermining social norms'

Lawyer's gay marriage abortion claim sparks outrage (Getty)

A US lawyer has claimed that legalising gay marriage will cause an increase in abortions.

In a post on the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, Gene Schaerr said that up to 900,000 children could be aborted “as a result of their mothers never marrying” and there being fewer available men.

Unmarried women “according to all available data, have much higher abortion rates than married women,” said Mr Schearr, who made headlines last year for defending Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage.

“Institutionalising same-sex marriage poses an enormous risk of reduced opposite-sex marriage rates,” he wrote in last week’s editorial.

Allowing gay couples to marry would, he said, “undermine some of the norms that encourage heterosexual couples to marry.”

These norms included monogamy, “biological bonding” and waiting until marriage to have children.

Having children before married meant, Mr Schaerr said, a man would be less likely to get involved in a girlfriend’s pregnancy.

Mr Schearr has filed an amicus brief on behalf of “100 scholars of marriage” to the Supreme Court asking judges not to recognise same-sex marriage as a constitutional right, the Washington Post reported.

Despite his claims, marriage rates across the US have dropped, even in states where same-sex marriage is not legal.

Now specialising in constitutional and appellate litigation, Mr Schaerr used to be a clerk to the US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.