WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The abortion rate in the United States continues to decline, as do the number of abortions overall, according to a report issued Nov. 21 by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The drop in both abortions overall and the abortion rate has declined each year for a decade.
According to the new report, the abortion rate in 2015 -- the last year for which statistics are available -- is at 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44. The rate has dropped eight of the past nine years since 2006's rate of 15.9; the rate of 15.6 held steady in 2008.
The overall number of abortions also continued to slide. The 2015 number of reported abortions was 638,169, about one-fourth less than the 852,385 reported in 2006. It is down 2 percent from 2014's figure of 652,639.
Over the past decade, the ratio of abortions to live births has also trended downward. The radio rose slightly from 2007 to 2008, and held steady in 2019 and 2010, but has declined from 2006's 233 abortions per 1,000 live births to 2015's 188 abortions per 1,000 live births.
The number of legal abortions in the United States peaked in the 1980s before beginning a slow but steady decline.
The number of legal abortions in the United States peaked in the 1980s before beginning a slow but steady decline, interrupted only by the slight rise in, or holding steady of, numbers in the late 2000s.
The CDC's numbers are not complete. They do not include California, Florida, Maryland, New Hampshire and Wyoming because they either "did not report, did not report by age, or did not meet reporting standards," the CDC report said.
The abortion rate is highest for women in their 20s. Women ages 20-24 had an abortion rate of 19.9, and women ages 25-29 had an abortion rate of 17.9 per 1,000 women in their age group. Together, they accounted for close to 60 percent of all abortions.
White women had an abortion rate close to one-fourth that of black women. White women accounted for an abortion rate of 6.8, while black women had an abortion rate of 25.1. The CDC report, though, noted that abortion rates, ratios and numbers have gone down among all racial and ethnic groups.
What is upsetting about this article, and the many other Catholic media's articles regarding this very good news from the CDC is the unwillingness of these media to be honest as to what led to this decrease of abortion in the U.S, according to the CDC Report.
CDC did report that the most important thing likely lowering the rate of abortion in our country is its better access to free, and better quality birth control, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. All of the Catholic Articles leave this section out because Catholics teach against birth control except for the very inconvenient and lesser quality birth control method of natural family planning or abstinence while fertile method.
We Catholics, for all our talk about the unborn lives that must be saved, don't care enough about the unborn to honestly admit that our stand on birth control causes abortions by causing unwanted pregnancies on a global scale.
We already have some preliminary data from beyond 2015 which has indicated that in 2017, before any states restricted access to abortion successfully, there was a reduction to abortion due to the easier access to better birth control given out thru Obama Care. This is the very benefit our nuns and hierarchy fought in court to weaken and keep from people working in Catholic agencies or places of work.
This is further proof our Hierarchy cares more about controlling women than it does about saving the unborn or saving women's lives and we are willing to lie about that.
Many of the Catholic Media and even America in this article, if you notice the picture at the start of this article, lead us to believe that pro-life efforts have helped to reduce abortion but there is no evidence to support that belief, and in every country of the world where abortion is difficult to obtain or illegal, there are greater amounts of abortion. The rule of thumb, in the world, by the World Health Organization's research is the stricter the access to abortion and birth control the more abortions will occur in that country. South American countries have the harshest laws against abortion and the highest rates of abortion in the world. The laws in South American Countries are as harsh as they are due to the majority Catholic populations which exist in these countries. These countries have much higher maternal death rates as well.
Our church leaders tend to lie to the laity, thru omission most commonly. This kind of false reporting on subjects is done to misinform the laity in such a way that the laity don't rebel because they don't pick up on the dishonesty. It is time to demand that our leaders and our media tell us the whole truth not half truths. In fact, many women's lives, as well as the lives of the unborn, depend upon this transparency. This is especially true, as our new president is hot to have judges who will attempt to weaken abortion rights which will likely cause more difficult access to abortion in the U.S. and therefore create more actual abortions to happen in the U.S., not less.
It is not clear exactly what are the reasons abortions increase in places they are most illegal but that does not change that fact that this is the result in reality, and it has been true for decades now. Only Sweden seems to be the exception to this rule, due to its low restriction on abortion but still very high rate. However, by all indications, making stricter laws in Sweden would only likely increase its already very high rate instead of decrease it.
The countries in the world with the least amount of abortions tend to be those in Western Europe, and these countries have fairly easy access to abortion, as well as free easy access to birth control. When these countries also offer benefits to parents such as better paid maternity/paternity leaves, govt. funded quality daycare, universal health care to all of their people, the abortion rates tend to go down even further. This last fact brings up yet another part of the sexist dishonesty problem in our church; since our hierarchy prefers women not work but stay home, we don't tend to proclaim the life-saving effects of the above kinds of benefits, to our church membership, as a good ideas to support with their taxes.
The reason that the rate went up in the early 1980s is because the Reagan tax cuts killed wage increases for workers above inflation. Killing inflation led to killing the unborn. Fix the economic problem for young women and families and the rate and number be almost three-fourths lower, if not rarer because the culture will not be as accepting of casual abortion (non-economic, non-medical).
The reason that the rate went up in the early 1980s is because the Reagan tax cuts killed wage increases for workers above inflation. Killing inflation led to killing the unborn. Fix the economic problem for young women and families and the rate and number be almost three-fourths lower, if not rarer because the culture will not be as accepting of casual abortion (non-economic, non-medical).