By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL-ETF Director of Education & Research
Because the nation’s most populous state, California, and others have been missing from its data set since 1998, no one really looks to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for the accurate total of the number of abortions that are performed in the U.S. each year. But that doesn’t mean that the information the CDC collects each year isn’t valuable. Pro-lifers can better understand their task and tailor their efforts by understanding the yearly data, valuable profile information, and important trends.
The fundamental distinction between the CDC numbers and those produced by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute is that while the CDC relies on voluntary reports from state health departments that vary in depth and detail, Guttmacher actually contacts abortion clinics directly and collects data with a standard survey instrument.
The CDC showed a small drop — from 827,609 to 825,546—in the number of abortions between 2007 and 2008. Guttmacher saw a slight increase –from 1,209,600 to 1,212,400. Again, there is no data from California, Maryland, or New Hampshire in the CDC totals, so the Guttmacher figure is closer to the actual number.
The CDC figures do seem to confirm, however, some recent leveling off in abortion trends. There are two key figures. One is the abortion rate – the number of abortions for every thousand women of reproductive age (15-44). According to CDC the abortion rate was 16/1,000 in both 2007 and 2008. Since 2001 that figure has not changed (plus or minus) more than two-tenths of a point: the range is 15.8/1,000 to 16.2/1,000. This number tells us how prominent abortion is in the lives of young women in the United States
The second important figure is the ratio of abortions to live births. That continued to drop during that time. In 2001 there were 251 abortions for every thousand live births. In 2008 there were 234 abortions for every thousand live births. With the exception of 2007, this is the lowest abortion ratio CDC has recorded since 1974.
To be sure, some of this may be due to the absence of data from California, which funds many abortions, but data from Guttmacher and from other states are consistent with CDC trend lines. Likewise population shifts and better reporting from states in some years rather than others probably accounts for some of the variation.
But these statistical vagaries should not obscure the major point: overall, a pregnant woman is less likely to abort her baby these days than any time since the early years post-Roe v. Wade.
Abortion rates were down for women under thirty years old in the states the CDC had data on from 1999 to 2008, and abortion ratios were down for women of nearly all ages (those 15 and under were the exception) during that same period. While women aged 15 to 30 still account for the vast majority of abortions, not surprisingly, abortion rates for women over 30 have been creeping up in the CDC’s past ten surveillance reports.
More than eight in ten of all abortions (84.3%) were to unmarried women. About 44.4% of abortions were repeat abortions (among those where previous abortion status was known).
The timing of abortions has changed, clearly the result of greater use of chemical abortifacients; in the states reporting to the CDC, 15.3% of abortions were listed as “medical abortion,” the industry’s preferred name for chemical abortions. Overall, 63.9% of abortions in reporting states occurred at the 8th week of gestation or earlier. That figure was 57.1% in 1999.
Getting a precise handle on race and ethnicity of abortion patients is difficult with the CDC. They report different percentages, rates, and ratios, depending on the number of states reporting. According to Table 12, the abortion rate for black women of reproductive age was 34/1,000, more than three times what it was for white women (10/1,000).
The abortion ratio was also extraordinarily high, with 471 abortions/1,000 live births among black women, versus 152 for whites. Table 13, which looks at rates and ratios historically (and thus uses fewer states) puts the black abortion rate at 35.6 and the ratio at 490.
Hispanic figures are similarly confusing. Table 14 shows an abortion rate of 20.6/1,000 for the ethnic group and an abortion ratio of 196/1,000, lower than that of blacks, but still higher than numbers reported for whites.
Table 15, which seems to cover more states, reports an abortion rate of 20.3/1,000 for Hispanics and a 192/1,000 abortion ratio.
Table 16, which tries to follow trends historically, but has data from even fewer states, reports Hispanic rates and ratios 21.7/1,000 and 211/1,000, respectively.
Given that these data sets exclude not only California, but many other states which do not report race or ethnicity, it is difficult to get a firm grip on the exact magnitude of the problem. But everything the CDC reports appears to indicate higher abortion rates and ratios among minorities, with perhaps reaching epidemic levels among African Americans.
One especially troubling statistic that seems to keep showing up in both Guttmacher and CDC surveys is that close to 60% of all aborting women have already given birth to at least one child.
The CDC also reports on the number of women who die during abortions, though this figure is delayed by a year. The deaths of six women from legal abortions were reported in 2007. This means that since 1972 the deaths of a total of 414 women from legal abortion deaths have been reported to the CDC.
The latest CDC report continues to show us that we have made some significant progress over the years– that more women are choosing life for their unborn children. But it also shows that we still have a long way to go, and especially with certain groups of women.
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