The Hard Truth About Abortion

Worldwide Abortion Statistics

Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million

Number of abortions per day: Approximately 115,000

Where abortions occur: 83% of all abortions are obtained in developing countries and 17% occur in developed countries.

...you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten. (The Didache (1st century teaching of the Church), Chap. 2; Estimated Range of Dating: 50-120 C.E.)

U.S. Abortion Statistics

www.abort73.com

Facts and figures relating to the frequency of abortion in the United States.

Primary, nationwide abortion statistics for the United States are available from two sources—privately from the Guttmacher Institute (AGI) and publicly from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In 2010 (the most recent year for which CDC data is available), California, Maryland, and New Hampshire did not provide abortion reports to the federal government. The following information has been gleaned from both sources to provide an overview of the frequency and demography of abortion. Additional, secondary statistics have been taken from the National Abortion Federation's (NAF) 2009 teaching text on abortion, Management of Unintended and Abnormal Pregnancy: Comprehensive Abortion Care.

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The Graphic Truth

WARNING:

This video shows graphic descriptions and images of actual aborted babies. As difficult as it is to watch, the fact is, unless the public sees with their own eyes the results of abortion they will never fully grasp the gravity of the issue nor will they ever be moved to do much to prevent it.

ANNUAL ABORTION STATISTICS

In 2011, approximately 1.06 million abortions took place in the U.S., down from an estimated 1.21 million abortions in 2008, 1.29 million in 2002,1.31 million in 2000 and 1.36 million in 1996. From 1973 through 2011, nearly 53 million legal abortions have occurred in the U.S. (AGI).
Based on available state-level data, an estimated 1.04 million abortions took place in 2012—down from an estimated 1.16 million abortions in 2009 and 1.13 million abortions in 2010.
In 2011, the highest number of reported abortions occurred in California (181,730), New York (138,370) and Florida (84,990); the fewest occurred in Wyoming (120), South Dakota (600) and North Dakota (1,250) (AGI).
The 2011 abortion rates by state ranged from a low of 3.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in Mississippi (Wyoming had too few abortions for reliable tabulation) to a high of 28.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in New York (AGI).
The annual number of legal induced abortions in the United States doubled between 1973 and 1979, and peaked in 1990. There was a slow but steady decline through the 1990's. Overall, the number of annual abortions decreased by 6% between 2000 and 2009, with temporary spikes in 2002 and 2006 (CDC).
In 2011, 17% of legal induced abortions occurred in California (AGI).
The US abortion rate is similar to those of Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden but higher than those of other Western European countries (NAF).
In 2005, the abortion rate in the United States was higher than recent rates reported for Canada and Western European countries and lower than rates reported for China, Cuba, the majority of Eastern European countries, and certain Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union (CDC).
Half of pregnancies among American women are unintended; about 4 in 10 of these are terminated by abortion. Twenty-one percent of all U.S. pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. (AGI).

WHO HAS ABORTIONS?

In 2010, unmarried women accounted for 85% of all abortions (CDC).
Women living with a partner to whom they are not married account for 25% of abortions but only about 10% of women in the population (NAF).
In 2010, women who had not aborted in the past accounted for 55.6% of all abortions; women with one or two prior abortions accounted for 36.7%, and women with three or more prior abortions accounted for 7.7% (CDC).
Among women who obtained abortions in 2010, 40.3% had no prior live births; 45.9% had one or two prior live births, and 13.8% had three or more prior live births (CDC).
Women between the ages of 20-24 obtained 32.9% of all abortions in 2010; women between 25-29 obtained 24.5% (CDC).
Women in their 20's have the highest abortion rates. In 2010, women aged 20-24 had 27.4 abortions for every one thousand 20-24 year-old women. Women aged 25-29 had 20.4 abortions for every one thousand 25-29 year-old women (CDC).
51% of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25; women aged 20-24 obtain 33% of all U.S. abortions, and teenagers obtain 18% (AGI).
In 2010, adolescents under 15 years obtained .05% of all abortions, but had the highest abortion ratio, 851 abortions for every 1,000 live births (CDC).
Black women were 3.7 times more likely to have an abortion in 2010 than non-Hispanic white women (CDC).
The abortion rate of non-metropolitan women is about half that of women who live in metropolitan counties (NAF).
The abortion rate of women with Medicaid coverage is three times as high as that of other women (NAF).
37% of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant, and 28% identify themselves as Catholic (AGI).
At current rates, nearly one-third of American women will have an abortion (AGI).

WHY DO ABORTIONS OCCUR?

On average, women give at least 3 reasons for choosing abortion: 3/4 say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or other responsibilities; about 3/4 say they cannot afford a child; and 1/2 say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner (AGI).
Only 12% of women included a physical problem with their health among reasons for having an abortion (NAF).
One per cent (of aborting women) reported that they were the survivors of rape (NAF).

WHEN DO ABORTIONS OCCUR?

89-92% of all abortions happen during the first trimester, prior to the 13th week of gestation (AGI/CDC).
In 2010, 6.9% of all abortions occurred between 14-20 weeks' gestation; 1.2% occurred ≥21 weeks' gestation (CDC).
Percentage of 2010 Reported Abortions by Weeks of Gestation* (CDC):
*Gestational weeks are measured from the first day of the woman's last menstruation and not from the day of conception. Though it does not provide an accurate fetal age (which is roughly 2 weeks less than the gestational age), it is the simplest way for an OB/GYN to age a pregnancy since the day of conception is often not known. Hence, if an abortion occurs at 8 weeks gestation, it is actually aborting a 6 week embryo. The images on our Prenatal Development and Abortion Pictures pages are more precisely captioned with fetal ages in accordance with standard teaching texts on prenatal development.

HOW DOES ABORTION TAKE PLACE?

In 2010, 80.5% of reported abortions were accomplished by curettage (which includes dilatation and evacuation). Most curettage abortions are suction procedures (CDC).
Medical abortions made up approximately 17.8% of all abortions reported (CDC).
Ninety-six per cent of the more than 140,000 second-trimester abortions that occur annually in the USA are accomplished by dilation and evacuation (D&E) (NAF).

WHO IS DOING THE ABORTIONS?

The number of abortion providers declined by 4% between 2008 and 2011—from 1,793 to 1,720 (AGI).
Forty-two percent of providers offer very early abortions (during the first four weeks’ gestation) and 95% offer abortion at eight weeks. Sixty-four percent of providers offer at least some second-trimester abortion services (13 weeks or later), and 20% offer abortion after 20 weeks. Eleven percent of all abortion providers offer abortions past 24 weeks (AGI).
Most abortions in the USA are provided in freestanding clinics; in 2005, only 5% occurred in hospitals, down from 22% in 1980, and only 2% took place in physician's offices (NAF).

ABORTION FATALITY

In 2009, 8 women died as a result of complications from known legal induced abortion; From 1973-2009, 411 women have died as a result of legal abortion (CDC).
The number of deaths attributable to legal induced abortion was highest before the 1980s (CDC).
In 1972 (the year before abortion was federally legalized), a total of 24 women died from causes known to be associated with legal abortions, and 39 died as a result of known illegal abortions (CDC).

THE COST OF ABORTION

In 2009, the average cost of a nonhospital abortion with local anesthesia at 10 weeks of gestation was $451 (AGI).

MEDICAL ABORTION

In 2011, 59% of abortion providers, or 1,023 facilities, provided one or more types of medical abortions. At least 17% of abortion providers offer only medication abortion services (AGI).
Medication abortion accounted for 23% of all nonhospital abortions in 2011 (AGI).

ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION

Induced abortions usually result from unintended pregnancies, which often occur despite the use of contraception (CDC).
51% of women having abortions used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant. (AGI).
8% of women having abortions have never used a method of birth control (AGI).
9 in 10 women at risk of unintended pregnancy are using a contraceptive method (AGI).
Oral contraceptives, the most widely used reversible method of contraception, carry failure rates of 6 to 8% in actual practice (NAF).

ABORTION AND MINORS

40% of minors having an abortion report that neither of their parents knew about the abortion (AGI).
39 states currently enforce parental consent or notification laws for minors seeking an abortion. The Supreme Court ruled that minors must have the alternative of seeking a court order authorizing the procedure (AGI).

ABORTION AND PUBLIC FUNDS

The U.S. Congress has barred the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions, except when the woman's life would be endangered by a full-term pregnancy or in cases of rape or incest (AGI).
17 states use public funds to pay for abortions for some poor women. About 14% of all abortions in the United States are paid for with public funds—virtually all from the state (AGI).

This page was last updated on July 28, 2014.

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