Abortions in the US show an Upward Trend after Years of Decline

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US government issued a report saying the abortions in the US appear to be inching up after a long decline. However, the officials are cautious about calling it an upward trend is incomplete. National abortion figures in 2017 reached their lowest level since the 1973 US Supreme Court decision that legalized abortions. The CDC also reported that there were small increases in the abortion rate and numbers. The abortion rate rose 1% in 2018, while the numbers increased 2% and the rate per 1,000 women of child-bearing age rose 1% in 2019. The CDC report represents the latest available data on US abortions. But experts said it must be interpreted cautiously because it is based on voluntary reporting and is not comprehensive. It doesn’t include abortions from 3 states including the nation’s most populous California State and other states that may have significant undercounts.

A group Guttmacher Institute said those omissions indicate that as much as 30% of the nation’s abortions may not be captured in the CDC data. The group conducts a more comprehensive survey of all US abortion providers every 3 years, and its next report is due out next year. It generally has painted a similar overall picture to what Guttmacher reports, in spite of the CDC report’s limitations. The lead researcher on that project, Rachel Jones said, “Historically, the trends tend to be the same. If it means more people are getting access to care when they need it then this is a positive development”. It is noteworthy that US births have been declining for more than a decade, meaning for years both births and abortions have been falling. The idea that abortions may be increasing lately may be surprising, especially given recent efforts in many states to restrict abortions.

Rachel Jones also said an increase could be related to access and use of birth control and it may even be tied to whether more people are having sex. There were about 630,000 overall abortions reported to CDC in 2019. The abortion rate was 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years. At least 56% of the reported abortions were surgical and about 44% were through the use of the so-called abortion pill in 2019. The report also showed about 18% of all pregnancies in the US ended in abortion. She added that it is hard to make general statements about US abortion trends because there can be dramatic differences from one state to the next. Moreover, numbers in one state can increase if women are traveling there from other states. It is still unclear what abortion trends will look like for 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some states including Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas have reported increases.