Ohioans having fewer abortions — and later in life

Ohio’s abortions have been cut by nearly half since 1999, with the sharpest decline among teenagers, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Abortion Surveillance reports.

Ohio’s 20,102 abortions in 2019 marked a 30% decrease from 2009 and a 45.7% decrease since 1999, the latest data shows. Abortions totaled 37,041 in 1999.

Here’s a look at other numbers from the CDC reports, using 1999, 2009, and 2019 as benchmarks.

In addition to fewer abortions, there has been a swing toward a larger share of the abortions taking place later in life.

In 1999, nearly 26% of abortions happened by age 19. In 2019, that share dropped to about 9%.This was a drop from 7,276 abortions in this age group in 1999 to 1,800 abortions in 2019.

The latest data shows that nearly 60% of abortions involved patients in their 20s. This is a big shift from 1999 when only 43% of abortions happened with patients in their 20s.

As modern-day abortions are happening later in a patient’s life, a greater share of patients are receiving an abortion for the first time.

In 2019, 59.7% of patients had an abortion for the first time for a total of 11,689. This is up from 1999, when 48.4% had an abortion for the first time for a total of 15,336. Additionally, 1999 had a greater percentage of previous abortions for 1, 2, or 3 and more than those today.

Some statistics have remained steady through the decades. The rate of married patients stayed around 15% each decade, dipping to 13.7% in 2009.

Additionally, the breakdown of patients who had previous children before their abortion has stayed consistent through the decades. In 2019, the breakdown was 36% (7,074) did not have any previous children, 25% (4,963) had one child, 21% (4,176) had two children, 10% (2,049) had three, and 7% (1,360) had four or more.

The CDC has also begun collecting two new factors between the 2009 and the 2019 reports.

The first is the weeks of gestation that passed before the abortion.

In Ohio, only 27.5% of abortions in 2019 happened before the six-week mark, which is when the ban on abortions under a law Gov. Mike DeWine signed would likely take effect if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. The largest share of abortions in 2019 happened just after that point, from weeks seven to nine, at 45.1%.

The second is the method type a patient chooses to perform an abortion, surgical or by medication.