Good News for the Cause of Life: Abortion Rate Decreasing in U.S.

The number of abortions has reportedly dropped over the last 10 years through 2014, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC’s Abortion Surveillance report, released this month, said that 652,639 abortions were reported in 2014. In 2005, that number was 820,151.

The report also found that four women died from legal abortion in 2013.

The CDC’s report is different that the Guttmacher report released in October. Guttmacher, the former researcher for Planned Parenthood, reported 926,200 abortions in 2014.

The CDC, however, said the numbers differ because Guttmacher uses  “numerous active follow-up techniques to increase the completeness of the data obtained through its periodic national census of abortion providers.”

The CDC report used voluntary data from all states except California, Maryland and New Hampshire.

Emergency contraception use was not counted in either report.

Highlights of the report for 2014 include:

•  Nearly 45 percent of women having abortions have already had at least one in the past.

• Women in their 20s made up nearly 60 percent of all reported abortions.

• White women made up about 38 percent of abortions. Black women made up about 36 percent and Hispanic women made up about 18 percent.

• More than 90 percent of the abortions were done at gestational age of less than 13 weeks.

Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Publication date: November 28, 2017