UPDATE, 3/20/24: In March, the Guttmacher Institute published abortion totals for 2023 which were slightly lower than what was estimated here. Those updated numbers can be seen at Live Action News here.
1/24/24: Abortions in the United States are estimated to have reached nearly 63 million since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision forced legalized abortion upon every U.S. state in 1973. Roe fell nearly 50 years later on June 24, 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (JWHO) case that Roe was “egregiously wrong from the start.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Estimates indicate a potential one million abortions in 2023, a number not seen for over a decade.
- While Guttmacher and the CDC have long reported abortion statistics, two new groups have recently begun to do the same.
- Published abortion data indicates that Black women have the highest rate and ratio of abortions, and the vast majority of abortions are sought by unmarried women.
- Current statistics show 2,548 abortions daily in the U.S. — 106 abortions per hour, 1.8 per minute, and one every 35 seconds.
- Planned Parenthood still commits more abortions than any other entity in the U.S., holding 40% of the market share, and takes in 1.8M taxpayer dollars EVERY DAY.
- 220 cases of abortion survivors were recorded in just eight states over 24 years; states aren’t required to report this information, so the number is likely exponentially higher.
- Nearly 6 million preborn children have been killed by the abortion pill in the U.S. since its FDA approval in 2000 – roughly equivalent to the population of Denmark.
- Globally, 73 million preborn children are killed by abortion every year — more than the entire population of the United Kingdom. (Worldometer)
Abortion by the numbers
1973-2020: The Guttmacher Institute recorded 60,011,560 abortions (data for 2021-2023 are not yet published).
1973-2021: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 48,384,231 abortions (latest data available).
2021-2022: Published totals are not yet available, but Live Action News has estimated those years at 900,000 each.
2023: Estimates indicate over one million abortions, a number not seen for over a decade.
Abortion stats 1973-2023 Guttmacher (1973-2020) and CDC (1973 -2021) are actual counts; the rest are estimated
Who publishes abortion data?
Traditionally, abortion data has been compiled by two organizations: The Guttmacher Institute (a former Planned Parenthood “special affiliate,”) and the CDC.
Guttmacher has funneled at least $100 million to Planned Parenthood and did not begin publishing abortion data until 1973. The organization currently utilizes responses to surveys it sends to abortion providers for its abortion reports.
In 1969, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began an abortion surveillance branch to document the number and characteristics of legally obtained abortions. To date, the CDC relies solely on data voluntarily reported from the states which individually set the standards for abortion reporting.
Currently, not all states report abortion statistics, and therefore, there are large disparities in abortion data state by state. Some require no reporting whatsoever, and others collect a variety of data on age, race, gender, gestation, complications, and other categories. As such, Guttmacher’s overall numbers tend to be more comprehensive.
Since Dobbs, two agencies have begun to publish estimated abortion data: the Guttmacher Institute and the Society of Family Planning (SFP), the latter of which was founded in 2005 thanks to a generous contribution from the Packard Foundation, heavily funded by the Buffett Foundation.
Estimated abortion totals
A review of Guttmacher’s estimated data, published at its Monthly Abortion Provision Study website, revealed that between January 2023 and October of 2023, nearly 900,000 (878,000) abortions were estimated to have been committed.
In addition, an average of 88,000 abortions were estimated to have occurred each month. Extrapolating this data for the remaining portion of the year reveals that 2023 abortions are likely to reach over one million (1,054,000) — the highest recorded since 2011.
In October 2023, SFP’s #WeCount numbers estimated that 1,072,240 preborn babies were killed after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, between June 2022 and June 2023. This includes 88,600 committed by virtual-only abortion pill dispensaries.
If the one million figure holds true when actual abortion numbers are published, nearly 2,900 preborn babies are potentially slaughtered by abortion every day — nearly 121 every hour, and one every 30 seconds.
Published abortion data
A review of past abortion data reveals that abortions increased rapidly after Roe was decided and peaked when Guttmacher recorded over 1.6 million abortions in 1990. Abortions then began to decrease, but that downward trend began to reverse toward the end of 2017, when abortions began to tick upward again.
In 2020, before Roe was overturned, Guttmacher recorded 930,160 abortions committed nationally — approximately 2,548 babies killed daily in the U.S. by abortion — 106 per hour, 1.8 per minute, and one every 35 seconds.
Guttmacher also documented that the abortion rate in 2020 (abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44) was 14.4. Guttmacher has not published official abortion counts for 2021-2023 but has indicated that in 2023 alone, nearly one in five women traveled out of state for an abortion, double the number in 2020.
In 2021, the CDC recorded 625,978 total abortions reported nationally from 48 reporting areas. CDC data also revealed that unmarried women, those in their 20s, and women who have experienced a previous ‘live birth’ but never had a prior abortion were among those who obtained the majority of abortions.
Tragically, CDC also revealed that Black women saw the highest rate and ratio of abortions that same year. Read more on who has the most abortions here.
Abortions 1973-2023. Guttmacher (1973-2020) and CDC (1973 -2021) are actual counts; the rest are estimated.
Guttmacher abortion data generally updates every two years in the fall, while CDC data is due to update in November 2024.
While nationally the trend is heading upward, in places like New York City, Black births have now outpaced Black abortions for the past several years.
Prior to and including 2016, the data revealed that more Black babies were aborted in NYC than had been born. However, in 2017 that trend began to reverse, and continued in 2020 (the latest year recorded), where NYC documented 18,162 Black births and 14,043 abortions of Black babies that same year.
NYC abortion stats Live births v abortions for Black women 2000 to 2020 (Graph: Live Action News)
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood remains the largest provider of abortions in the nation.
Its most recent annual report (2021-22) showed a slight drop in the number of abortions it committed — from 383,460 in 2020-21 to 374,155 in 2021-22. This means Planned Parenthood killed an average of 1,025 preborn babies every day, nearly 43 every hour, and one every 84 seconds in 2021-22, committing more than 40% of all abortions in the U.S.
Despite the slight drop in abortions, Planned Parenthood took in the largest amount ever recorded in taxpayer/government revenue – a whopping $670.4 million as of June 30, 2022 ($1.8 million taxpayer dollars every day). Planned Parenthood had also accumulated over $1.9 ($1,906.7) BILLION in revenue, and the organization’s excess revenue over expenses stood at a whopping $204.7 million, the highest amount of profit recorded since 2017.
Since 2000, Planned Parenthood has committed over 6.7 million abortions and received nearly $10 billion from taxpayers. Planned Parenthood data is likely to update in June of 2024. Read more here.
Abortion pill data
Nearly six million women have used the abortion pill (mifepristone) to end the lives of preborn children since the dangerous drug was approved in 2000.
Total abortion pill counts are tracked by Danco or GenBioPro (which oversee manufacturing of the drug in the United States) and are submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The latest published data by the FDA revealed that from 2000 through the end of December 2022, “approximately 5.9 million women” used the abortion pill mifepristone in the U.S. for “medical termination of pregnancy.”
In addition to the increase in babies targeted by chemical abortion, the FDA reported 32 deaths “associated with mifepristone” since its approval in 2000. “The FDA has received reports of serious adverse events in patients who took mifepristone. As of December 31, 2022, there were 32 reports of deaths in patients associated with mifepristone since the product was approved in September 2000, including two cases of ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy located outside the womb, such as in the fallopian tubes) resulting in death; and several fatal cases of severe systemic infection (also called sepsis),” according to the updated numbers published on the FDA website on September 1, 2023.*
Abortions by pill now make up the majority of all abortions committed in the United States — 53% in 2020 alone. And with the proliferation of unregulated online virtual abortion businesses, chemical abortion numbers are likely to grow. This number does not represent abortion pills being shipped into the country illegally.
Abortion facilities
Abortion-providing facilities — which include hospitals, specialized and nonspecialized abortion facilities, as well as physician offices — have reportedly declined nearly 45% since the early 1980s.
In addition, while stand-alone abortion facilities increased over 212% just after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973 (284 in 1974 to 885 in 1988), the number has dropped nearly 9% in recent years. Read more on this here.
Abortion clinic and providing facility data
U.S. abortion deaths
The latest data from the CDC recorded six abortion-related deaths for women for the year 2020. The number of women dying from abortion increased 50% from the four deaths recorded in 2019, and 200% from the two deaths recorded in 2018.
The government agency defines an abortion-related death as “a death resulting from a direct complication of an abortion (legal or illegal), an indirect complication caused by a chain of events initiated by an abortion, or an aggravation of a pre-existing condition by the physiologic effects of abortion,” the report stated.
The CDC also noted that from 1998 to 2020, abortion surveillance data reported to the CDC… excluded “eight reporting areas” which “did not report abortion data every year during this period.” These non-reporting areas included “Alaska, 1998–2000; California, 1998–2020; the District of Columbia, 2016; Louisiana, 2005; Maryland, 2007–2020; New Hampshire, 1998–2020; Oklahoma, 1998–1999; and West Virginia, 2003–2004.”
In other words, while six abortion-related deaths were recorded in 2020, these did not include abortion deaths that might have occurred in states like California, Maryland, or New Hampshire.
The number of published abortion-related deaths has now risen to 460 deaths from legal abortion recorded by the CDC between 1973 and 2020, with additional amounts reportedly killed by illegal abortions.
Abortion survivors
Instances of babies who survived failed abortion attempts are likely occurring more often than what has been recently reported, as there are no federal abortion reporting requirements. Only a handful of states require cases of abortion survivors to be documented, and Live Action News found 220 such cases were reported from 1999-2023 in just eight states. Their fate is unknown.
Because of a lack of consistent reporting, that number is almost certainly substantially higher. Read more here.
Worldwide abortion totals
Many countries do not gather reliable abortion data, and not all countries have fully decriminalized abortion. Those that have decriminalized it may allow abortion at varying times and for various reasons.
In 1999, Guttmacher claimed, “About 26 million women have legal abortions each year, and 20 million have abortions in countries where abortion is restricted or prohibited by law.” In March of 2022, Guttmacher claimed (and the World Health Organization [WHO] agreed) that 73 million babies are killed by abortion worldwide per year.
While it is important to note that abortions are not included in total death counts, in 2021 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Our World in Data estimated that 69 million people died worldwide. At the same time, 2021 worldwide abortion estimates published by the WHO estimated 73 million babies were killed by abortion globally that year.
In 2023, worldwide death counts published by Our World in Data totaled 61 million — far fewer than 2021. While 2023 global abortion data has not been published, it is likely that abortions may still tragically outnumber other published deaths globally in 2023.
Editor’s Note: This article may be updated periodically as new data become available.
*The adverse events cannot with certainty be causally attributed to mifepristone because of concurrent use of other drugs, other medical or surgical treatments, co-existing medical conditions, and information gaps about patient health status and clinical management of the patient.
