Friday, January 18, 2008

A Happy Trend - Abortion On the Decline

The article pretty much speaks for itself.

The number of abortions in the United States fell to the lowest level since the procedure was made legal some 35 years ago, according to a national study released Thursday.

The Guttmacher Institute... said there were about 1.2 million abortions in 2005 -- 25 percent fewer than in 1990, when the number of abortions was about 1.6 million procedures.

In 2005, the US abortion rate was 19.4 abortions for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, according to figures compiled from surveying abortion providers. The 2005 figure represented an eight percent drop from the number of abortions in 2000.

The finding underscores a continued a downward trend that started after the abortion rate peaked at 29.3 procedures per 1,000 women in 1981, according to the institute.
Of course, it would be better to see even fewer. But the continuing decline of abortions is an encouraging trend, and gives hope that one day they may be essentially confined to the hard cases: rape, incest, and life of the mother.

5 comments:

"Nick" said...

One of the sad days of my life was when I realized that no other nation has the amount of access to abortion that the US has. They all have some (even if slight) requirements that make it harder to get one.

This is encouraging... I eagerly await the day when abortion is no longer readily accessible (and hope for a day when it is no longer wanted).

Anonymous said...

I believe that TV shows like Southpark have HELPED america see that abortion is nothing to be proud about and that it is sick. One of the characters believes that she is pregnant in one of the episodes and proclaims, "this is great, now I get to scramble it's brains." When this character is later chalenged, she screams, "it is my body, and I can scramble my baby's brains if I want to! GIRL POWER!" Such sarcastic portrails of the horors of abortion are just the thing to shock an unthinking public into realizing how violent abortion really is. Back in the 70's, having an abortion was a feminist badge of honor, akin to excercising the right to vote. That twisted ideal is no longer the case.

Ward said...

Interesting that this comes out right when I was reading a new report that divorce is also down to just under 45%, which is a two decade low apparently.

Anonymous said...

One of the reasons that abortion is on the decline is that there are many less abortion providers. Many states have none. Pro-life activism seems to have helped close down some.

Anonymous said...

The more I think about that southpark idea, the more silly it sounds... oh well, it was just an idea, but I do think that the culture is less accepting.