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Beginning of Life
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TOTAL ABORTIONS SINCE 1973: |
Abortions Level Off After Decline
After reaching 25 percent from a high of over 1.6 million in 1990, the number of abortions performed annually in the U.S. has leeled off at about 1.2 million a year.
Two independent sources confirm this latest trend: the government’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute (GI), which was once a special research affiliate of abortion chain Planned Parenthood.
The CDC ordinarily develops its annual report on the basis of data received from 52 central health agencies (50 states plus New York City and District of Columbia). GI gets its numbers from direct surveys of abortionists conducted every few years.
Because of these different methods of data collection, GI has consistently obtained higher counts than the CDC. CDC researchers have admitted it probably undercounts the total number of abortions because reporting laws vary from state to state and some abortionists probably do not report or under-report the abortions they perform. Nevertheless, because increases and decreases in CDC and GI numbers have usually roughly tracked each other, both sources are thought to provide useful information on abortion trends and statistics. The CDC stopped reporting estimates for some states in 1998, though, making the discrepancy larger.
Abortions from CA and NH have not been counted by the CDC since 1998, and other numbers have been missing from the totals during that time frame: OK in 1998, AK from 1998 to 2002, WV in 2003 and 2004, LA in 2005 and 2006, MD in 2007 and 2008. For areas that did report, overall declines were seen from 1998 through 2008, though totals ticked up again in 2006.
GI’s latest survey found slightly higher numbers in 2008, but these may be due to the addition of abortionists missed in previous surveys. Increasing numbers of chemical abotions have also helped arrest previous declines.
Using AGI figures through 2008, estimating 1,212,400 abortions for 2009 through 2011, and factoring in the possible 3 percent undercount GI estimates for its own figures, the total number of abortions performed in the U.S. since 1973 equals 54,559,615.
Reported Annual Abortions - 1973-2006
YEARGI CDC 1973 744,600 615,831 1974 898,600 763,476 1975 1,034,200 854,853 1976 1,179,300 988,267 1977 1,316,700 1,079,430 1978 1,409,600 1,157,776 1979 1,497,700 1,251,921 1980 1,553,900 1,297,606 1981 1,577,300 1,300,760 1982 1,573,900 1,303,980 1983 1,575,000 1,268,987 1984 1,577,200 1,333,521 1985 1,588,200 1,328,570 1986 1,574,000 1,328,112 1987 1,559,100 1,353,671 1988 1,590,800 1,371,285 1989 1,566,900 1,396,658 1990 1,608,600 1,429,577 1991 1,556,500 1,388,937 1992 1,528,900 1,359,146 1993 1,495,000 1,330,414 1994 1,423,000 1,267,415 1995 1,359,400 1,210,883 1996 1,360,160 1,225,937 1997 1,335,000 1,186,039 1998 1,319,000 884,273 * 1999 1,314,800 861,789 * 2000 1,313,000 857,475 * 2001 1,291,000 853,485 * 2002 1,269,000 854,122 * 2003 1,250,000 848,163 * 2004 1,222,100 839,226 * 2005 1,206,200 820,151 * 2006 1,242,200 846,181 * 2007 1,209,600 827,609 * 2008 1,212,400 825,564 * 2009-11 1,212,400 **
* Excludes NH, CA, and at least one other state
** NRLC base figure
Updated: January 2012
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