Is abortion going out of style? Not exactly, but abortion rates have generally fallen since the 1990s for various political, economic and social reasons. But in recent years, according to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates have stalled, raising questions about whether pregnant women have access to a full range of reproductive options and choice.
The study reports:
Nationwide, the number of abortions peaked in 1990, at 1.61 million, and dropped 25 percent, to 1.21 million, by 2005. Similarly, the abortion rate declined 29 percent over the same period, from 27.4 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 to 19.4 per 1,000.
But between 2005 and 2008, the rate ticked up by 1 percent. If this reflects a plateau in abortion rates, it’s unclear what’s driving the trend. Has contraception become too expensive? Harder to access? Has abstinence-only education kept young people from take precautions against unintended pregnancies? Whatever the reasons, here’s the message Guttmacher President Sharon Camp takes from the report:
In this time of heightened politicization around abortion, our stalled progress should be an urgent message to policymakers that we need to do more to increase access to contraceptive services to prevent unintended pregnancy, while ensuring access to abortion services for the many women who still need them.
Ensuring access to abortion can be difficult in an atmosphere where the government or insurance companies don’t want to pay for the procedure, federal and state lawmakers are drafting legislation to make abortions ever more difficult for women to obtain, and anti-abortion extremists are cranking up the hateful rhetoric and violence at clinics.
Then there are the economic barriers: Abortion might be prohibitively expensive for some low-income women. And they may have to drive to the next county to find a clinic because, as Guttmacher reported in 2008, the number of U.S. abortion providers has been in a steady decline, peaking in 1982 at 2,900 facilities and falling to 1,800 by 2005. In that year, 87 percent of U.S. counties–home to 35 percent of women ages 15-44–lacked an abortion provider .
Even if women can reach a clinic, it might refuse to provide an abortion past a certain number of weeks into the pregnancy, or require a teenager to get her parent’s consent first. Another alarming trend Guttmacher researchers and others have identified is the routine harassment of abortion providers, which have ranged over the years from picketing to bombings to assassinations.
Among large non-hospital providers (those "offering 400 abortions or more") the proportion reporting harassment grew from 82 percent to 89 percent between 2000 and 2008.
The scarcity of providers reveals how abortion, as a public health issue, has been marginalized from mainstream healthcare discussions. In addition, one of the main reasons women decide to get abortions is that socioeconomic hardship makes childbearing and raising a family a huge burden. That means abortion is increasingly an issue not just of reproductive rights but also economic justice.
It's hard to discern clear patterns from the data, since abortion rates fluctuate heavily from state to state. Future studies may compare abortion trends with rates of unintended pregnancy and unintended birth, to figure out whether abortion is becoming more accessible to women dealing with unwanted pregnancy, or whether more women are being forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. There's one positive trend in the way women use abortion services: an increase in medication-induced abortion, which is associated with earlier, and thus safer, termination of unwanted pregnancy.
The new data helps illuminate the landscape of reproductive rights in the new decade: a complex mix of choice and limitations in health, wealth and geography, all of which conspire to make a woman’s deeply personal decision into an intensely political one.
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Women are not merely incubators.
They are human beings who are free to choose.
Not all women have a 'choice' to risk becoming pregnant. Do you believe any five to 10 year olds who have delivered babies had that ability to risk that? And, even less when they were raped or sexually abused.
When a woman and her partner take preventive measures against conception, they show their choices about having a child at that time. Biology does not override these 'choices', nor is a woman's right to be free to choose when faced with an unwanted or hazardous pregnancy a question of biology but of ethics. Nor do most women consider abortion itself as a primary means of birth control.
As a man, you argue for legislation that would create, for many, financial, social, and health hazards, blessed by the knowledge that you would never face these.
Everyone wants people to be responsible about sex, pro-choice and pro-life. But the pro-lifers have shown, time and time again, to be opposed to comprehensive sex education that keeps unwanted pregnancies down, especially among teens. The U.S. leads the western world in pregnancies among teenagers because of its refusal to introduce comprehensive sex education, largely because of pro-life people who oppose such education and, like you, blame the incidence of pregnancy on irresponsible sex while preventing more responsible attitudes and behaviors.
You know what they do care about ? DICTATING THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS TO YOU ! They want to spell out in clear LOUD language "..YOUR GOING TO HELL IF YOU HAVE, WANT OR NEED AN ABORTION"...
Rightwing crazy people like Santorum use this issue as a wedge to distinguish their candidacy. He cannot get elected by his merits, his valor, his courage, his honor, his dedication to American ideals, humility, concensus building, talent, intelligence, articulation, statesmenship or insight. So his only refuge to be relected and to be on TV is spam anyone who views him with RELIGIOUS ideaologies hoping that their ignorance and faith will steer them into the voting booth for him and his Nazis like ideas.
As you can see from history he has a large swath of the public who are so devoutly ignorant and spiritless the issue is nolonger one between a human and their God but a black and white litmus test for PERSECUTION only seen since the dark ages in Europe.
These people are sick. Their only cure is education. All bow your heads and pray that God sees fit to pry them from reruns of HeeHaw and Rush Limbaugh.
The ONLY WAY to stop the need for an abortion is to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted. That means that ALL women must be able to get affordable contraceptives. Women and girls who are raped MUST be able to get the "morning after pill". This issue opens up another can of worms as some feel the "morning after pill" is an abortion pill, and pharmacists have been known to refuse to fill the woman's prescription.
One final thought: Abortions are a medical procedure and for the GOP to try to keep insurance companies from paying for them is hypocritical. The GOP constantly yell about smaller government, which means Government should't interfere with Business. They want to shrink government down so that is small enough to fit in our wombs.
If they truly wanted to save 'unborn children' they would be rallying for investments in medical knowledge and technology also. Such as, for example, fetal trans-implantation in others and artificial wombs. Being as they do not wish any such things, or the choices they would then be faced with--stepping up to the plate themselves to offer their bodies (male and female) to carry these 'unwanted unborn' and assuming parental responsibility for these once born to them, they have no real agenda except exacerbating hardship.
Gawd forbid they stop using abortion as birth control. IF you don't wanna take the pill or wear a condom, then take responsibility for getting pregnant than give it up when he/she is born.
Or maybe they should go and get themselves sterilized so they don't have to worry about using abortion as birth control.