US abortions rise: 1 in 5 pregnancies terminated in 2020

Washington, June 15 (BNA): The number and percentage of abortions in the United States increased from 2017 to 2020 after a long decline, according to figures released on Wednesday.

The report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, counted more than 930,000 abortions in the United States in 2020. That’s up from about 862,000 abortions in 2017, when national abortion numbers reached their lowest level since the ruling US Supreme Court 1973. That legalized the procedure nationwide.

About one in five pregnancies ended in miscarriage in 2020, according to the report, which comes as the Supreme Court appears ready to overturn that decision.

The number of women who have had abortions illustrates the need and “highlights the impact of the Supreme Court’s devastating decision to access a very vital service,” Sarah Rosenbaum, professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, said.

Medical abortions, sometimes called “the abortion pill,” Guttmacher told the Associated Press, accounting for 54% of abortions in the United States in 2020, the first time they accounted for more than half of all abortions.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have lowered numbers in some states, according to the report. In New York, abortions increased from 2017 to 2019, then decreased by 6% between 2019 and 2020. One in 10 New York clinics temporarily suspended or stopped abortion care in 2020.

Texas saw a 2% decline between 2019 and 2020, coinciding with the state’s pandemic-related abortion restrictions.

Elsewhere, the epidemic may have limited access to contraceptives, some experts said, or discourage women from making all pregnancy-related health care visits.

However, abortions were already escalating before the coronavirus turned people’s lives upside down. One contributing factor: Some states have expanded access to Medicaid abortion.

Illinois, for example, began allowing state Medicaid funds to pay for abortions as of January 2018.

The state saw a 25% increase in abortions between 2017 and 2020.

In neighboring Missouri, abortions have dropped dramatically, but the number of Missouri residents traveling to Illinois to have abortions has increased to more than 6,500.

said Carol Tobias, chair of the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion.

Guttmacher conducts the nation’s most comprehensive survey of abortion providers every three years.

The statistic is more complete than data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which omits several states including California, the most populous state in the country.

The researchers found that in 2020, fewer women are getting pregnant and more are choosing to have an abortion. There were 3.6 million births, a decrease since 2017.

The abortion rate in 2020 was 14.4 per 1,000 women aged 15-44, up from 13.5 per 1,000 women in 2017.

Abortions increased 12% in the West, 10% in the Midwest, 8% in the South, and 2% in the Northeast.

FKN