NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Abortions in the United States are at their lowest level since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a woman’s legal right to terminate a pregnancy in the case Roe v. Wade.
The findings were released earlier this year in the report “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2011” by the Guttmacher Institute, which works to advance sexual and reproductive health through research, policy analysis and public education.
Between 2008 and 2011, the abortion rate fell 13 percent as did the number of abortions which numbered almost 1.1 million in 2011, according to the report.
This drop predates the unprecedented wave of anti-abortion legislation at the state level which began in 2011, the authors noted. States passed 205 restrictions on abortion between 2011 and 2013, more than the 189 restrictions passed in the entire previous decade, the report said.
The fall in the number of abortions coincided with improved use of long-acting contraceptives, such as IUDs, and a steep national drop in overall pregnancy and birth rates that might reflect the pressures of the severe financial recession that struck in 2008, the report’s authors said.
Here are some key facts about abortion in the United States:
- The most important reasons women cite for terminating a pregnancy are: concern for/responsibility to other individuals (74 percent) and cannot afford a baby now (73 percent).
- Half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about four in 10 of these end in abortion.
- About half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy, and nearly 3 in 10 will have an abortion, by age 45.
- The overall U.S. unintended pregnancy rate increased slightly between 1994 and 2008. The rate increased 55 percent among poor women, but decreased 24 percent among higher-income women.
- Some 1.06 million abortions were performed in 2011, down from 1.21 million abortions in 2008, a decline of 13 percent.
- Nine in 10 abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
A broad cross section of U.S. women have abortions:
- 58 percent are in their 20s;
- 61 percent have one or more children;
- 56 percent are unmarried and not cohabiting;
- 69 percent are economically disadvantaged; and
- 73 percent report a religious affiliation.
Source: Guttmacher Institute
(Editing by Tim Pearce; timothy.pearce@thomsonreuters.com)
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