{"id":234963,"date":"2020-11-26T09:44:29","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T15:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=234963"},"modified":"2021-01-21T22:31:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T04:31:40","slug":"cdc-report-57-percent-drop-abortions-1990","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/cdc-report-57-percent-drop-abortions-1990\/","title":{"rendered":"New CDC report shows 57% drop in abortions from record high in 1990"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just\u00a0released<\/a>\u00a0its latest reported abortion data, which shows a continuing trend of decreasing abortion numbers as well as abortion rates.<\/p>\n

In the most recently reported year of 2018, the CDC reported 619,591 abortions, up slightly from 2017’s total of 612,719, but a drop of nearly 57%<\/strong> from its highest peak<\/a> of 1,429,247 abortions in 1990. The year prior, in\u00a02016<\/a>, the CDC reported 623,471 abortions.<\/p>\n

Reasons for uptick
\n<\/b>
\nAccording to Dr. Michael New who analyzed<\/a> the data at National Review Online, the increase\u00a0may be associated with relaxed label changes to the abortion pill by the FDA in 2016, allowing for chemical abortions later in pregnancy. Dr. New also pointed to policy changes at the state level, including expanding\u00a0taxpayer-funded abortion<\/a>, documented to increase abortions.<\/p>\n

“It is worth noting that, while CDC statistics indicate that between 2017 and 2018, the number of abortions increased in 27 of the 46 states reporting data for both years, in many cases, these abortion increases were small. But since a majority of states did report abortion increases, it is likely that other factors in addition to public policy contributed to the overall abortion rate increase,” Dr. New wrote.<\/p>\n

“It is certainly possible that the recent uptick in the U.S. abortion rate might simply represent a short-term, temporary increase and that the long-term downward trend of the last few decades will continue in the future. Even though the abortion rate has fallen fairly consistently since 1980, there have been a few years when there it increased slightly,” he also added.<\/p>\n

Comparing 2018 abortion numbers to those that took place in 1973<\/a> when Roe v. Wade<\/em> legalized abortion throughout the US, the numbers are shockingly similar, with 2018’s numbers surpassing 1973’s\u00a0(615,831) by about 4,000 abortions. In addition, the 2018\u00a0data shows that over the past 10 years (825,564 in 2008<\/a> v. 619,591 in 2018), abortions reported to the CDC have dropped by nearly 25%.<\/p>\n

Abortion rate and ratio<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2018, abortion data was sent to the CDC from a total of 49 reporting areas (47 states, the District of Columbia, and New York City, excluding California, Maryland, and New Hampshire), an increase in one reporting area since 2009. However,\u00a0in 2018, the CDC used the previous 48\u00a0continuously reporting areas <\/em>to\u00a0calculate the 2018 abortion rate of 11.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15\u201344 years and ratio at 189 (number of abortions per 1,000 live births).<\/p>\n

The good news is that in 2018, the abortion rate showed a decline of nearly 53%<\/strong> from where it was in 1990<\/a>\u00a0(24 v. 11.3), and a decrease of 19% (19.29%) since\u00a01973<\/a>\u00a0(14 v. 11.3).<\/p>\n

\"Image:

CDC abortion data and abortion rates 2009 to 2018<\/p><\/div>\n

The Charlotte Lozier Institute’s Dr. Michael New published<\/a> a tweet about the data, noting that among continuously reporting areas between 2016 and 2018, there was:<\/p>\n