New federal data shows that the abortion rate in the United States has decreased dramatically over the last decade.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have come out with a a new report that shows America’s abortion rate has declined 26% between 2006 and 2015. This is the lowest level of abortions the government has on record.
This is great news. However, while abortions have significantly declined as reported by the CDC, Life News reports that a number of states don’t actually report their abortion numbers to the CDC. Those states include California, Maryland, and New Hampshire. A number of states also didn’t provide comprehensive numbers and only gave the CDC limited information.
The reason for the decline in abortions
“This decline in abortions is happening amid other positive trends in reproductive health,” Vox reports. “The number of teen pregnancies in the United States, for example, has decreased dramatically since the 1990s — and a lot of that seems to have to do with young adults using better contraception.”
”When contraceptives aren’t available, women use abortion, even if it isn’t legally sanctioned and even if it puts them at great physical risk,” Diana Greene Foster, an associate professor at University of California San Francisco who studies abortion and contraception, told Vox. “When contraceptives are more available, use of abortion declines.”
However, pro-life laws and a possible culture change when it comes to abortion are also playing a factor.
Vox notes that stricter abortion laws might have played a role in reducing the number, but also this important fact: “Some recent polling data shows that millennials are slightly more opposed to abortion than older generations, too.”
Abby Johnson, who is the head of the pro-life organization And Then There Were None was cautiously optimistic about the new CDC numbers showing a decrease in abortions:
“It’s always good news when abortions decline but these numbers are hard to take seriously when the state that performs the most abortions [California] is not included in the report. There is also no record of the many complications of abortion that women experience, likely because those instances are shoved under the mat in many abortion clinics.”
Johnson added:
“By our work helping abortion workers quit their jobs and find life-affirming ones, we are hopeful abortion rates will continue to drop as abortion clinics close their doors because no one will work for them.”
National Right to Life President Carol Tobias also reacted to the decline in abortions:
“Sixty million unborn children have died as a result of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. However, through the right-to-life movement’s determination to protect mothers and their children, we continue to see evidence that our efforts to educate America about the unborn child’s humanity, and our efforts to enact protective pro-life legislation, are having a tremendous impact in moving our nation away from Roe and Doe’s deadly legacy.”
For years, the pro-life movement has talked about “changing the culture.” Is it finally happening? Particularly with younger Americans?
Maybe more culture-changing combined with more contraception can continue to save even more lives in the future.