Washington, DC — Abortions are becoming less common in the United States—particularly among teen-agers—but researchers say they are surprised by a major survey that shows the abortion rate climbing among low-income women.
The overall U.S. abortion rate fell from 1994 to 2000—from 24 abortions for every 1,000 women of childbearing age to just 21, the Alan Guttmacher Institute reported Tuesday. The research center is affiliated with Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion business in the United States.
But in a surprise to researchers, the abortion rate rose sharply for women who make less than twice the federal poverty line—about $34,000 for a family of four. The rate fell among higher-income groups.
“That was not something we expected to find,” said Rachel K. Jones, lead researcher for the study, which was based on questionnaires from more than 10,000 women who had abortions. “They went down for everyone else.”
According to the survey, the abortion rate rose 25 percent for women below the poverty line and 23 percent for women making less than twice the poverty level. The percentage of women who had abortions who were economically disadvantaged increased from 50 percent in 1994 to 57 percent in 2000.
Jones claimed the rise may be evidence that low-income women have less access to contraceptives, leading to more unwanted pregnancies.
She said the pro-abortion institute planned additional research in the coming year to get a more concrete picture of the reasons behind the trends.
“We're interested gaining a better understanding of why abortion rates have increased for economically disadvantaged women, especially given that these women have typically had high abortion rates to begin with,” Jones said.
But Laura Echevarria, a spokeswoman for the National Right to Life Committee, said using access to contraceptives to explain the rise in abortions performed on low-income women is “probably a bit of a stretch.”
“I'd like to see what their educational levels are, how many of them have access to educational material, how many of them understand childbirth,” she said.
Echevarria said a more likely reason for the abortion rate drop is due to pro-life educational efforts and pro-life legislation.
“Educational efforts by pro-lifers and advances in technology have created greater awareness of the humanity of the unborn child among women of all ages,” she explained. “In addition, parental consent and parental notification laws have had an impact on teen abortions.”
Indeed, recent studies in Texas show that the state's parental notification law reduced abortion by thirty percent while hearings in Kentucky showed the state's Right to Know law reduced the abortion rate by one-third.
The Guttmacher study also showed a steep drop—nearly 40 percent—in the abortion rate for women 15 to 17 years old. It fell from 24 per 1,000 young women in 1994 to just 15 in 2000.
Those figures do not necessarily mean more teens are carrying pregnancies to term. Other key indicators of teenage sexual activity—including teen pregnancy and births to teen mothers – also fell steadily in the late 1990s largely in part to increased abstinence efforts and the ability of pro-life members of Congress to secure federal funding for them.
The federal government's most recent abortion statistics are from 1998. Those figures, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also show a steady drop in abortions during most of the 1990s.
But the CDC's figures rely on reports from state and local health agencies, and they do not include all 50 states. The CDC declined to comment in advance of the release of the Guttmacher report.
Among the study's other findings:
—Abortions remain concentrated among women who have never married. About 67 percent of abortions in 2000 were performed on never-married women, compared with 17 percent on married women and 16 percent on previously married women.
—Nearly 90 percent of abortions in 2000 were performed on women who live in metropolitan areas, where abortion clinics are much more common than in rural areas.
—Blacks and Hispanics continue to have disproportionately high abortion rates. Blacks make up about 14 percent of women age 15 to 44 but account for 32 percent of abortion. Hispanics make up about 13 percent of that age group but account for 20 percent of abortions. Pregnancy rates are historically higher among minority women.
—Approximately 48 percent of all women having abortions have had one or more previous abortions.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
