New CDC Data Shows Abortions Continue to Decline

December 6, 2002—Atlanta, GA:  The number of reported abortions fell again in 1999, continuing a steady decline that started in 1991, the federal government said in a recent surveillance report.

The abortion ratio—the number of abortions per 1,000 live births—fell to the lowest recorded level since 1975, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. The 1999 ratio was 256 abortions per 1,000 live births, a 3.2 percent decline from 1998.

However, the small decline in the number of abortions in 1999—down 2.5 percent from 884,273 abortions in 1998 --was not enough to budge the national abortion rate. That rate remained at 17 abortions per 1,000 women. This was the same number as in 1997 and 1998, the agency said in its 1999 Abortion Surveillance report, released Friday.

According to the CDC there were 862,000 abortions in 1999. However, the CDC is notorious for underreporting and the undercount in years past has only gotten worse according to a leading abortion statistics researcher.

Dr. Randy O'Bannon, National Right to Life's Director of the Department of Education, tells the Pro-Life Infonet the CDC dropped four states, Alaska, California, Oklahoma and New Hamnpshire, from their data list in 1998—making their data very incomplete. As a result, although the CDC first showed the number of abortions dipping below one million in 1998, the number of annual abortions is likely higher than that even today.

"Though there are a lot of abortions not counted in the CDC data, it is obvious from the data they do have that abortions are down, and that is encouraging," O'Bannon explains.

CDC data relies on reports from state health departments, Dr. O'Bannon told the Pro-Life Infonet, and not all states require full disclosure of the number of abortions that occur. On the other hand, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, relies on more direct reporting from abortion facilities, resulting in increased accuracy. AGI annual abortion numbers have frequently been as much as 3 to 5 percent or more higher than the data from the CDC.

The CDC report attributes the decline in abortions to many factors, such as a decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies; an aging female population; reduced access to abortion; and passage of abortion laws that require waiting periods or parental notification.

Better contraceptive practices and "emergency contraception" are also playing a large role in reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortion rates, said Vicki Saporta, president and chief executive of the National Abortion Federation.

Pro-life advocates disagree.

Abortions are declining because the public knows more about the details of abortion, said Laura Echevarria of the National Right to Life Committee. This, in turn, is causing Americans, especially young ones, to become much more conservative in their views on abortion, she said.

A case in point, she added, is the Zogby International poll of 1,800 persons conducted last month for the Buffalo (N.Y.) News. The poll found that 32 percent of people had changed their opinions on abortion, with 21 percent becoming "more negative" on abortion, the newspaper said.

The decline in abortions "says a lot for the tireless sacrifice of those in America's pregnancy care centers, for the pro-life educational campaigns, and for those who have worked so hard to pass parental involvement, waiting period, informed consent, and partial-birth abortion legislation," Dr. O'Bannon added.

Of the states studied, the report found that New York had the highest occurrence of legal abortions (137,234) and Wyoming had the lowest (110). Virginia reported 27,354 abortions, Maryland reported 11,164 and the District of Columbia reported 7,373.

Other highlights of the report:

• A total of 137,396 abortions were performed on teens. More than 60 percent were performed on 18- and 19-year-olds.
• Fifty-seven percent of abortions were performed at eight weeks or less gestation and another 20 percent were performed between nine and 10 weeks gestation.
• Some 9,643 abortions, or 1.5 percent, were performed later than 21 weeks gestation. More than 97 percent of abortions (681,519) were by dilation and curettage methods; less than 1 percent (6,278) were done "medically" with abortion drugs such as mifepristone (RU 486).
• In 1998, the most recent year for data, nine women died as a result of complications from legally induced abortions.