Abortion rate dropping in U.S.

[elaine]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/17....ap/index.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- The number of abortions in the United States dropped to 1.2 million in 2005, the lowest level since 1974 and down 25 percent from the all-time high of 1.6 million in 1990, according to report issued Thursday.

The Guttmacher Institute, which surveyed abortion providers nationwide, said there probably were several reasons for the decline, including more effective use of contraceptives, lower levels of unintended pregnancy, and greater difficulty obtaining abortions in some parts of the country.

Cont...

[KayKay]

Oh, okay. I'll bite, since no one seems to want to touch this topic with a ten foot pole.

I think everyone would agree - pro-choice, or pro-life - that this is good news. I don't think either side thinks abortions are "good" things.

Here's my concern: There is, based on my observation, a third "cause" (if you will) for this trend. I have noticed that there are a lot more people (teens mostly) opting to have the baby even if it's an unplanned pregnancy.

That is really the more disturbing trend, IMO. All of my opinion is based on observation of (obviously) a small sampling. But I have noticed that the teen moms are having the babies and either dropping out of school to raise them (going on welfare) or going on with their lives and leaving the babies to be raised by "whoever". The older moms have the babies and either go on welfare or leave the babies to be raised by "whoever". I'm obviously not saying that's 100%. There are a lot of women who are devoted, conscientous (sp? too tired to check) moms and struggle to get by.

I mentioned in another thread my friend who is 55 and has 5 GGC. Only one of those was planned (GGC #5 who was born to the M of GGC #1 who is still with the D but not married.) One pregnancy was terminated.

I'm not passing judgments here... I'm just making an observation. I wish the article would have mentioned those pregnancies.

The food for thought in those situations is that society is picking up the tab for a lot of those kids, and a lot of those kids are not being brought into the world to be loved, nurtured, and cared for. Not good.

[grubby]

Avoiding the obvious debate that comes with this topic, the majority of abortions are done for woman who are over 25 and already have children. Your right Kay, the most recently article I have read, teenagers only account for 17% of the abortions in the US.

And the most recognized factor for wanting an abortion is economic. Especially in lower-middle income families that barely make enough to get by but don't qualify for assistance. Many of these woman are faced with the decision of barely being able to financially take care of the child/children they already have, letalone having another child, time off from work, medical bills, etc...

Another percentage of abortions are career woman. The practicality of being able to have a high powered, pressure job and raise a child is low.

[KayKay]

Originally Posted by grubby

the majority of abortions are done for woman who are over 25 and already have children.

Did you mean "under" 25?

I went seeking stats on abortion. TBH, I had never "researched". I found this, which seems to jive with the CNN article.

http://www.abort73.com/HTML/II-A-abo...tatistics.html

The website is (I think... didn't peruse too much) pro-life, but the stats seem pretty unbiased.

Just FYI, if anyone wanted to see them.

One of the more surprising stats, to me, was that 49% of pregnancies among American women were unintended. How can they possibly know that? Neither of my two pregnancies were unintended, but no one ever asked me. I'm not sure I believe that.

ETA: Here's the Guttmacher report: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

Does it seem reasonable to other people? I guess I'm stuck on the high % of unintended pregnancies. I'm also a little stunned by the "54% of women getting an abortion had used a contraceptive (usually condom or pill) during the month they got pregnant. WOW. Are the birth control failure rates THAT high?! Too tired to think this through... is that what the 54% is saying? I'm missing something...

[1dilwhosreal]

KayKay, Guttmacher's the most respected source for statistics in this area.

The 54% failure rate seems high until you put it in perspective of the other stats.

There's about a 19% abortion rate among women, with 54% of that being from women who used protection. That's roughly 8% of abortions by women using contraception. 13% of those reported using the pill properly, 14% report using condom properly, which translates roughly to a less than 1% failure rate for contraception-- exactly what the manufacturers say their failure rate is.

The rest who used BC didn't follow the program, which I believe is definitely the most likely scenario, even among those who reported using their methods properly. Every woman I know who uses oral contraceptives forgets to take them nor do they abstain until they "catch up."