Statistics show that abortions are on the decline in the United States. According to pro-abortion activists, it’s because fewer women are facing unintended pregnancies. But is that the whole story?
Data shows that unintended pregnancy has declined, but the level of change is moderate. The number of abortions, however, have seen a sharper decline from over 1.6 million in 1990 to less than 1 million based on current estimates.
The chart below shows how in the early 1980s, about 30% of U.S. pregnancies ended in abortion compared to less than 20% today.
Abortion data via Guttmacher and state reports. Birth data via U.S. CDC.
While abortion advocates give contraception the main credit for a lower number of abortions, there’s a flaw in that logic: if contraception were the only reason for lower abortion rates, there would be fewer women getting pregnant. But we don’t see declines in unintended pregnancy rates that match declines in the abortion rate.
Between 1981 and 2011, abortion rates dropped by 32.8%. Conversely, unintended pregnancies declined by 22.6%. The number of women facing unintended pregnancies who chose abortion also dropped, from 54% to 42%. This tells us that more mothers than ever before are rejecting abortion for their children when faced with unintended pregnancies.
While pro-choicers have chosen to react to the news of more births with emoji sad faces, we can rejoice that more mothers are choosing life for their babies.
