FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 17, 2002

ACCESS TO ABORTION STILL UNDER FIRE AFTER
THREE DECADES OF LEGALITY IN THE U.S.

Following the nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973, the U.S. abortion rate increased briefly, peaking in 1980 at 29 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15Ð44. It then declined, gradually at first, but more steeply after 1990. The current rate (as of 1997) of 22 abortions per 1,000 women represents a total of 1.3 million pregnancies that end in abortion each year in the United States.

Globally, about 26 million women have legal abortions each year, and 20 million have abortions in countries where abortion is restricted or prohibited by law. Even in the 55 countries where abortion is permitted on broad grounds-including the United States-there are many restrictions. In the United States, laws have created outright bans on abortion, put mandatory delays on women's right to have an abortion, denied women insurance coverage for abortion and forced adolescent women to seek parental consent.

Around the world, abortion rates correlate not with whether abortion is legal in a country, but with women's ability to avoid unwanted pregnancies by using contraceptives. In country after country, the introduction of modern methods of contraception is associated with declines in abortion rates.

Women in developed and developing regions have strikingly similar abortion levels-39 procedures per 1,000 women and 34 per 1,000 women per year, respectively.

210 million women around the world become pregnant each year. Of those pregnancies, 80 million are unplanned, 46 million of which end in abortion.

Internationally, the lifetime average is about one abortion per woman

Nearly 230 million women worldwide do not want to be pregnant, yet lack effective contraceptive protection.

As Justice Harry Blackmun said in a 1994 White House press conference, "I think [Roe] was right in 1973, and I think it was right today. I think it's a step that had to be taken as we go down the road toward the full emancipation of women."

A graphic overview of abortion in the United States, including international comparisons, is now available from The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) and Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, at http://www.guttmacher.org/index.html or http://www.prch.org/.

Click here for links to more abortion-related information. In addition, AGI will release new information on abortion in the coming year, including:

abortion data collected through patient and provider surveys; and
a report on women's use of and experience with mifepristone (medical abortion) in developed countries.

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