A new report shows a 13% decrease in the rate of abortions, but whether the drop is caused by a decline in abortion providers, shifts in public opinion or the increase in long-acting contraceptives is under dispute

Abortions Down But So Are Births, 

and Cause Is Unknown

BY PETER JESSERER SMITH

The U.S. abortion rate is as low as it has been since 1973. But the reasons for the downward trend are unclear and in dispute, as the birth rate also continues to drop, raising questions as to whether the United States is actually shifting in a pro-life direction or is instead becoming ever more reliant on contraception.

The Guttmacher Institute, an abortion research firm with historical ties to Planned Parenthood, reports that the abortion rate dropped 13% over a period of three years to 16.9 abortions in 2011 for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15-44. The annual number of children aborted in the U.S. dropped to under 1.06 million in 2011 from 1.21 million in 2008, when the rate was 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women.

The study shows the abortion ratio has declined, but only slightly. In 2011, 21.1 women out of 100 opted for abortion instead of birth. It shows that at least one more woman out of 100 pregnancies (not ending in miscarriage) is choosing giving birth instead of abortion than in 2008, when the abortion ratio was 22.5 women out of 100.

While the abortion decline revealed in Guttmacher’s latest report has been hailed by the pro-life community as a positive sign, the reasons for why the abortion rate is going down are not clear. Guttmacher’s researchers point out that U.S. women had fewer pregnancies in 2011 than 2008: Not only did the abortion rate decline 13%, but the birth rate dropped by 9%.

Rachel Jones, the lead researcher on the Guttmacher report, said her team was surprised to find that abortion rates were decreasing in all regions of the country — Midwest (17%), West (15%), South (12%) and Northeast (9%) — including states with liberal abortion laws and more restrictive ones. Only six states (Wyoming, Alaska, New Hampshire, Missouri, Maryland and West Virginia) showed zero or positive abortion rate increases. But Jones doesn’t think the drop is necessarily an indication that people are choosing life instead.

“If it was just a drop in abortions, and the birth rate hadn’t changed or gone up, then that would have suggested that fewer women had access to abortion services or, if they got pregnant, were choosing not to have an abortion,” Jones said. “But the birth rate went down, which suggested fewer women were getting pregnant. And it went down so much that it was impossible that all, or even most of those abortions, were converted to unintended births.”

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