Data: 30% of women in US will have abortion during lifetime at current rates

Q:What percentage of women will have an abortion sometime in their lifetime at current termination rates?

A: 30.09%

How did we calculate this figure?

• Latest annual U.S. abortion rate via Guttmacher Institute: 1.21 Million

• Approximately 48% of all abortions are repeat abortions according to the Guttmacher Institute Abortion Patient Surveys cited on p. 62 of their report, “Abortion Patient Surveys“. This mean that 52% of abortions are first-time abortions or 629,000 of 1.21 Million abortions annual.

• The 2010 U.S. census shows the following number of women in the U.S. at a given age:

  • 15-19: 10,736,677

  • 20-24: 10,571,823

  • 25-29: 10,466,258

  • 30-34: 9,965,599

  • 35-39: 10,137,620

  • 40-44: 10,496,987

• The following is the % of abortions that occur at a given age based on Guttmacher data:

  • 15-19: 17.6%

  • 20-24: 33.4%

  • 25-29: 24.4%

  • 30-34: 13.5%

  • 35-39: 8.2%

  • 40-44: 2.9%

• This results in the following number of weighted 5-year women’s population: 10,455,464

• Because the above data is in 5 year chunks, the 10,455,464 figure must be divided by 5 to get the annual number of women eligible for abortions which equals 2,091,093

• The 2,091,093 annual women’s population figure is divided into the annual number of 1st time abortion which was calculated above as 629,000. This yield a rate of 30.09%

While the Guttmacher Institute does not  provide their own exact calculation as provided abortion, they do state the following:

“At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, nearly one-third will have had an abortion”

This is generally consistent with our analysis of the data although it may be more accurate to say 3 in 10 or 30% women will have a termination procedure in their lifetime at current rates.