U.S. Abortion Rate Drops to an All-time Low

As per the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, the USA pregnancy and abortion rates reached historic low, continuing the downward year-by-year trend.

The number of induced abortions was 1.1 million in 2010, the most recent year for which statistics were available.

“The estimated number of pregnancies dropped to 6.155 million in 2010, the lowest number since 1986”, they added.

“Much has been written about the birth rate, and much about the abortion rate, but a lot are shown separately”, Sally Curtin, a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics and one of the study’s authors, told Time.

Pregnancy rates continued their long, steady decline in the first decade of the 21st century, with corresponding decreases in the rate of abortion, according to CDC data released Friday on pregnancy outcomes through 2010. Few girls 14 and under have babies but this number dropped by 67 percent in 2010 compared to 1990, they found. And pregnancies among teenagers 15 and older fell by 50 percent.

Another factor that Kost suggested was of consideration was that the number of unintended pregnancies had also fallen across the board.

The researchers found the rates of pregnancy among women 40 and older rose by 70 percent.

All groups had larger percent reductions in abortion than birth rates over the 1990-2010 period, according to the study.

At the same time, black women had the highest pregnancy rate in 2010, of 135.1 per 1,000 women, compared with Latinas who registered 118.4 pregnancies per 1,000 women and whites, with 84.1 per 1,000 women. Kost disagrees, showing that the statistics end in 2010, before the last abortion restrictions were passed by legislatures.

Pro-life pregnancy care centers have provided alternatives to abortion such as adoption, financial assistance and school assistance, he said.

“We are looking at 2010, as well as the upturn in the limitations on abortions actually took off in 2011 and 2012”, Kost said.

The CDC report covered the rate of pregnancy in America, plus the rate of the three possible results of pregnancy: live birth; abortion; or fetal loss through miscarriage or stillbirth. Additionally, then, the report pointed out the fetal loss rate is lower than the same data from 1990. She also added that while the abortion rate has reduced among teenagers, pregnancy rates have increased for women aged 30 and older between 1990 and 2010.