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| 1973 | 1975 | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1973 | 1975 | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Year | Abortions | per 1000 women1 | per 100 babies2 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | 744,600 | 16.3 | 19.3 | ||||||||
| 1974 | 898,600 | 19.3 | 22.0 | ||||||||
| 1975 | 1,034,200 | 21.7 | 24.9 | ||||||||
| 1976 | 1,179,300 | 24.2 | 26.5 | ||||||||
| 1977 | 1,316,700 | 26.4 | 28.6 | ||||||||
| 1978 | 1,409,600 | 27.7 | 29.2 | ||||||||
| 1979 | 1,497,700 | 28.8 | 29.6 | ||||||||
| 1980 | 1,553,900 | 29.3 | 30.0 | ||||||||
| 1981 | 1,577,300 | 29.3 | 30.1 | ||||||||
| 1982 | 1,573,900 | 28.8 | 30.0 | ||||||||
| 19833 | 1,575,000 | 28.5 | 30.4 | ||||||||
| 1984 | 1,577,200 | 28.1 | 29.7 | ||||||||
| 1985 | 1,588,600 | 28.0 | 29.7 | ||||||||
| 19863 | 1,574,000 | 27.4 | 29.4 | ||||||||
| 1987 | 1,559,100 | 26.9 | 28.8 | ||||||||
| 1988 | 1,590,800 | 27.3 | 28.6 | ||||||||
| 19893 | 1,566,900 | 26.8 | 27.5 | ||||||||
| 19903 | 1,608,600 | 27.4 | 28.0 | ||||||||
| 1991 | 1,556,500 | 26.3 | 27.4 | ||||||||
| 1992 | 1,528,900 | 25.9 | 27.5 | ||||||||
| 19933 | 1,500,000 | 25.4 | 27.4 | ||||||||
| 19943 | 1,431,000 | 24.1 | 26.7 | ||||||||
| 1995 | 1,363,700 | 22.9 | 26.0 | ||||||||
| 1996 | 1,365,700 | 22.9 | 26.1 | ||||||||
| Notes | |||||||||||
1. Number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 through 44.
| 2. Number of abortions per 100 babies conceived. (Not counting miscarrieages.)
| 3. Data estimated. (Interpolated from prior and future years.)
| | |||||||||
It is difficult to say just what is causing it. It may be that the pro-life movement is showing some success in convincing women not to abort their children. It is surely fair to give the crisis pregnancy center movement at least some credit. Pro-abortionists often blame the declining number of physicians willing to become abortionists and hospitals willing to perform abortions. Whether this is because pro-lifers have managed to make abortion a less socially aceeptable profession, or whether physicians have come to the conclusion that this is unsavory work on their own, either way lives are saved. Or it may be a side-effect of larger trends. For example, the rate of teen pregnancy is declining. (And what is causing that trend is a whole different question.)
"Partial-birth abortion" was a term that was invented by Congress for the purposes of legislation. The only method of abortion in common use which meets Congress's definition is what abortionists term "Dilation and Extraction (D&X)", "Intact Dilation and Evacuation (Intact D&E)", and various other terms that describe essentially the same method. (Congress invented a new term rather than using the terms already in use so that they could define it generally, and an abortionist could not circumvent the law by making minor modifications to the technique and giving it a new name.)
In their survey, Guttmacher found only 8 abortionists who admitted using this method, for a total of 363 abortions in 1996 and 201 in the first half of 1997. As their surveys do not include all abortionists in the country, they estimate from this that a total of about 14 abortionists comitted about 640 D&X's in 1996.
On the other hand, an abortionist in California has admitted that he did 65 third-trimester abortions per year, and most of these appeared to be D&X's. The inventor of D&X says that he himself has committed 1000 of them. And a reporter for The Record in Hackensack, NJ, found one cinic there that performed 1,500 D&X's in one year. There may be quibbles over the exact definition of what a D&X is, or perhaps abortionists are understating the numbers to avoid bad publicity.
Guttmacher also asked how far into pregnancy abortionists did D&X's. They found that most were between 20 and 24 weeks. Only two abortionists reported using this method before 20 weeks, and four after 24 weeks. The latest was 33 weeks.
Counts of abortions are based on the Guttmacher Institute's survey of abortionists. Guttmacher is a strongly pro-abortion organization. Their counts are typically about 10% higher than government figures, because they are based on direct reporting by friendly organizations, while the government numbers come indirectly through state health departments, with varying degress of vigor in pursuit of complete numbers.
Number of women of child-bearing age comes from US Census figures. Numbers of births come from the National Center for Health Statistics (a US government agency).
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Posted 16 Sep 2000.
Copyright 1999 by Ohio Right to Life
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