US abortion rates at its lowest level in decades
A new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested that the abortion rate in the U.S. has fallen to its lowest level in 2013 since 1971, two years before abortion became legal across the country.
According to the CDC, there were 664,435 abortions reported to the organization in 2013. The report showed that abortions declined by 4 percent since 2012 and 20 percent since 2004.
The statistics indicated that the 2013 abortion rate was 12.5 abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 and there were 200 abortions per 1,000 live births.
There has been a steady decline in abortions in the past several years as pro-life legislators passed a significant number of pro-life laws in some states, according to Life News.
The report also revealed that a majority of the women who have abortions were in their 20s. Women aged 20 to 24 accounted for 32.7 percent the abortions while 25.9 percent were aged 25 to 29. Around 11.7 percent were aged 19 and below.
About 66 percent of the abortions were performed within the first eight weeks of gestation and almost 91.6 percent were done within 13 weeks. Only 7.1 percent were done within 20 weeks and just 1.3 percent were performed after 20 weeks of gestation.
Only 22 percent of abortions were induced medically, through the use of drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol. Nearly all the others were done through surgical procedures.
About 15 percent of women who went through the procedure were married while 60 percent already had at least one child.
The report also indicated that four women died due to complications from legally induced abortion in 2012.
The figures were based on the reports submitted by 47 states to the CDC. The state of California, Maryland and New Hampshire do not report their abortion statistics to the health institute.
It was estimated that about 900,000 abortions are performed across the U.S. each year. In 1990, when California was still reporting its numbers to the CDC, there were 1.4 million recorded abortions.
The report suggested that the decline can be attributed to a significant drop in adolescent pregnancies, increased use of effective contraceptives and the expanded coverage of the cost of contraceptions in health care plans.
