US abortion rate is lowest in nine years, new data shows
Fewer women in the US are having abortions than at any time in the last nine years, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC collects data on abortions by contacting the central health agency for 48 states. The study excludes California, one of the most populous states in the nation. This study examined the abortion rate from 2007 to 2016.
Researchers found the abortion rate declined from 188 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2015, to 186 abortions in 2016, and 26% over the entire period of the study. The agency found a total of 623,471 abortions in 2016, the vast majority in the first trimester.
Most women who terminated a pregnancy were in their 20s, had never had an abortion, and already had children.
Other recent studies suggest the declining abortion rate is not the result of high-profile abortions restrictions passed during the Trump administration – such as six-week abortion bans now hung up in court. Rather, declining abortions rates coincide with declining fertility rates, suggesting fewer women are getting pregnant.
The study follows the September release of data from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights nonprofit. Guttmacher’s data is considered more comprehensive than government data, because the organization individually contacts abortion providers. CDC data typically captures about 70% of the abortions reported by Guttmacher.
“When we talk about the abortion rate, we are really talking about reproductive autonomy,” Dr Herminia Palacio, the president and CEO of Guttmacher, said at the time their data was released. “It’s the right for people to make their own choices about when to get pregnant, when not to get pregnant, and what to do if they are pregnant and don’t want to be.”
Guttmacher’s analysis found two major trends: there is a growing abortion access divide regionally, with fewer clinics in the south and midwest, and that declining abortion rates are probably the result of fewer pregnancies.