NEW YORK (AP) – The number and rate of abortion in the United States has fallen to its lowest level since the procedure became legal nationwide in 1973, according to new figures released Wednesday.
The report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that advocates for abortion rights, counted 862,000 abortions in the United States in 2017. That’s down from 926,000 in the group’s previous report for 2014 and just over 1 million for 2011.
Guttmacher is the only company attempting to count all abortions in the United States by making inquiries to individual providers. Federal data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention excludes California, Maryland and New Hampshire.
The new report shows that abortion rates are declining in all parts of the country, from Republican-controlled states that want to restrict access to abortion to Democratic-run states that protect abortion rights. Between 2011 and 2017, abortion rates increased in only five states and the District of Columbia.
One reason abortions have declined is that fewer women are getting pregnant. The Guttmacher Institute found that both birth rates and abortion rates have declined over the years of the new report. A likely factor, the report says, is increased contraceptive accessibility since 2011, as the Affordable Care Act required most private health plans to cover contraceptives without a deductible.
According to the report, the abortion rate in 2017 was 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 — the lowest rate since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court’s 1973 legalization of abortion. After that ruling, the number of abortions in the United States rose steadily, peaking at 1.6 million in 1990 before beginning a steady, still ongoing decline. The abortion rate today is less than half what it was in 1990.
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Guttmacher noted that nearly 400 state laws were enacted between 2011 and 2017 restricting access to abortion, but these laws are not the main cause of the overall decline in abortion rates. 57% of the statewide drop occurred in the 18 states plus the District of Columbia that did not enact new restrictions.
Between 2011 and 2017, the number of abortion clinics in the United States fell from 839 to 808, with significant regional variations, the report said. The South saw a drop of 50 clinics, including 25 in Texas, and the Midwest saw a drop of 33 clinics, including nine each in Iowa, Michigan and Ohio. In contrast, the Northeast added 59 clinics, mostly in New Jersey and New York.
During that period, abortion rates fell 27% in Ohio and 30% in Texas, but rates fell by similar amounts in states that protected access to abortion, including California, Hawaii and New Hampshire.
Areas with the highest abortion rates in 2017 were the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Florida. Rates were lowest in Wyoming, South Dakota, Kentucky, Idaho and Missouri – many women from these five states go abroad to have abortions.
A significant trend documented in the report is that people who have abortions are increasingly relying on medication rather than surgery. Medical termination of pregnancy using the so-called abortion pill accounted for 39% of all abortions in 2017, up from 29% in 2014.
The report, which focuses on data from 2017, fails to chronicle the spate of sweeping abortion bans enacted in several GOP-controlled states earlier this year, including a near-total ban in Alabama and five bills prohibiting abortion after a fetus heartbeat is detected as early as the sixth week of pregnancy. None of these bans have come into force; Her supporters hope litigation over the laws could eventually lead to a Supreme Court ruling that returned Roe v. Wade weakens or cancels.
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Guttmacher’s President Dr. Herminia Palacio said abortion restrictions, whether or not they result in fewer abortions, are “inherently compulsive and cruel,” with a disproportionate impact on low-income women.
However, the push for stricter restrictions continues. Just last week, Texas Right to Life and some allied groups called on Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session of the Legislature to eliminate “every remaining elective abortion” in the state.
The report comes amid upheaval in the state’s family planning program, known as Title X. About one in five family planning clinics have left the program, objecting to a Trump administration executive order banning them from referring women for abortions. Title X Clinics provide birth control and basic health services to low-income women.
“If your priority is reducing abortions, one of the best things you can do is ensure women have access to high-quality, affordable, and effective methods of birth control,” said Alina Salganicoff, director of women’s health policy for the party Kaiser Family Foundation.
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