Abortion Rises in US, Reversing 30-Year Decline, Report

[ad_1]

According to one study, the number of abortions in the United States has increased, reversing a thirty-year decline. new report.

The increase began in 2017, and by 2020, one in five pregnancies, or 20.6 percent, have ended in abortion, according to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that promotes abortion rights. In 2017, 18.4 percent of pregnancies ended in abortion.

The institute, which collects data by contacting every known abortion provider in the country, reported that the number of abortions increased from 862,320 in 2017 to 930,160 in 2020. The number increased in every region of the country: 12 percent in the West, 10 percent in the Midwest, 8 percent in the South and 2 percent in the Northeast.

New data shows the Supreme Court in Roe v. It was published as he prepared to issue a decision that could effectively break the Wade standard. If the court’s final decision looks like an opinion draft that was leaked last month, about half of states are expected to quickly ban or sharply restrict abortion, while other states are poised to expand the reach of patients from states where abortion is not possible.

Overall, the new report shows that the abortion rate rose to 14.4 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 2020, with 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women in this age group in 2017, a 7 percent increase. found it.

The report noted that nationwide births declined by 6 percent during this period, meaning “fewer people got pregnant and a larger proportion of those who got pregnant opted for abortion.”

Finding the number and rate of abortions increasing in 33 states and the District of Columbia, the report said there was “no clear pattern” to explain each state’s trajectory. He suggested several reasons for the national increase, including trends in recent years that directly affect low-income people most likely to seek abortion: Some states have expanded Medicaid coverage for abortions, and Expanded funds that provide financial assistance to patients seeking abortions.

Another factor could be the Trump administration’s policy to prevent programs that receive federal family planning benefits, known as Title X funds, from telling patients about the option of abortion. According to the Guttmacher report, this rule has caused Planned Parenthood and several state governments to refuse to accept Title X funding, which could reduce access to other family planning services, including birth control, for low-income people and lead to more unwanted pregnancies. The Biden administration has since rescinded its Trump-era policy.

The increase in abortion comes at a time when many conservative states are placing new restrictions on the procedure. But the report said that while 25 states enacted 168 abortion restrictions from 2017 to 2020, some have been stopped by legal challenges and many have already been enacted by states with significant restrictions, so the new laws may not have prevented more abortions.

The report also noted that other states have passed 75 provisions to protect or expand access to abortion, including requiring insurance to cover abortion and allowing nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse midwives to provide some abortion services.

“This shows that people in every state want abortions in every state, despite restrictive measures in many states,” said Leslie Reagan, a historian of American medicine and public health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The data included most of the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. During this time, access to abortion has been disrupted in some states, both by attempts to ban it and by epidemics and restrictions on personal medical care, although some states have maintained access to abortion, the report said. In addition, for part of 2020, abortion pills were allowed by a judge’s decision. More than half of abortions in the countryto be mailed to patients – an application by the Food and Drug Administration permanent in December 2021.

Author of a book titled “When Abortion Is a Crime,” Dr. Reagan said he believes “the severe unemployment and food insecurity that followed the shutdown” during the pandemic also fueled the increase in abortions. “Many people were unable to feed themselves and their existing families and knew they could not care for a child.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, issued a statement condemning the rise in abortions. “The pro-life movement must continue to educate its fellows, and pro-life lawmakers at both the state and federal levels must be as ambitious as possible to build consensus,” he said.

A press release from his group said the new report found “significant increases in abortions in states like California, Illinois and New York, which have expanded abortion policies in recent years and have virtually no limits on abortion until birth.”

In fact, the percentage increase in the number of abortions in these states was less than in some conservative states, such as Mississippi, where the number of abortions increased by 40 percent from 2017 to 2020, and Oklahoma, where the number of abortions increased by 103 percent. In that case.

The growth in Mississippi is stunning because 2018 Mississippi law outlaws most abortions performed after 15 weeks in a pregnancy that is currently before the Supreme Court. The Guttmacher report said Mississippi residents are seeking abortions in surrounding states, but more patients are going to Mississippi’s only abortion clinic as those states enact restrictions that have resulted in clinics closing.

Oklahoma passes the nation’s toughest test abortion ban, but the reason for the increase in abortions from 2017 to 2020 was that many patients from Texas, which had many restrictive laws, traveled there. Yet the new report showed that the number of abortions was also increasing in Texas during those years – 5 percent, the same percentage increase as in New York.

Of the 17 states where numbers and rates fell, by far the biggest drop was in Missouri, which had 4,710 abortions in 2017 and 170 abortions in 2020. The report said this decline was due to Missouri patients choosing to have abortions. During this time, abortions increased by 25 percent.

A handful of states experienced declines in every region of the country, including five of the nine states in the northeast; this is a reflection of the complex influences that determine who gets an abortion and from where.

[ad_2]

Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *