Abortion Rate At Lowest Point Since Roe v. Wade

A study from the Guttmacher Institute, which has been monitoring the abortion rate, shows that this has dropped to the lowest rate since Roe v. Wade.  The rate was 16.3 abortions per 1000 women in 1973 at the time of the Roe v. Wade decision. The rate subsequently increased to a high of 29.3 in 1980 and has been steady dropping since then. There most recent data from 2011 showed a rate of 16.9 per 1000 women.

This decrease is attributed largely to improvements in birth control, as well as to the economy as people tend to adhere to using birth control more when the economy is bad. While it is unlikely to happen, one might think that reducing the rate back to the level when Roe v. Wade took effect would lessen the hostility of conservatives towards the Supreme Court decision, and perhaps decrease their attempts to impose their views on abortion upon others. If a reduction in abortion was their sole goal, then we would also expect conservatives to support the wider use of contraception. However, as their views are more based upon religious dogma and authoritarianism, they are likely to continue to attempt to restrict contraception as well as abortion.

The drop in abortion has not been attributed to the wave of anti-abortion legislation pushed through recently as most of the new laws did not take effect until after 2011. It will be interesting to see how this affects abortion rates in the future, but interpretation could be hindered by the drop in abortion rates regardless of the changes in abortion laws.