According to figures released, the number and rate of abortions in the United States have increased from 2017 to 2020. The report from the Guttmacher Institute counted more than 930,000 abortions in the US in 2020. This institute is a research group that supports abortion rights. That’s up from about 862,000 abortions in 2017; when national abortion figures reached their lowest point ever since the 1973 American Supreme Court ruling that legalized the procedure in the country.
The findings of the report state that about one in five pregnancies ended in abortion in 2020. However, now the Supreme Court appears ready to overturn that decision. Moreover, the number of women opting for abortions highlights a need and “underscores just how devastating a Supreme Court decision is going to be for access to an absolutely vital service,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor.
What kind of abortions is taking place in the US?
Medical abortions are the two-drug combination sometimes called the “abortion pill”. This type of abortion accounted for 54% of US abortions in 2020. This is the first time they made up more than half of abortions.
According to the report, the COVID-19 pandemic may have pushed down the numbers in some states. In New York, abortions increased from 2017 to 2019. Thereafter, they fell 6% between 2019 and 2020. One in 10 clinics in New York paused or stopped abortion care in 2020. Texas witnessed a 2% decrease between 2019 and 2020. This coincided with pandemic-related abortion restrictions in the states in the US. Equally important is that the pandemic may have limited access to contraception, some experts said, or discouraged women from undertaking all the health care visits involved in a pregnancy.
Yet, abortions were already inching upward before the coronavirus increased people’s lives. One contributing factor is that some states expanded Medicaid access to abortion. In 2020, the researchers found that fewer women were getting pregnant. Moreover, a larger share of them chose abortion. There were 3.6 million births, a downfall since 2017. Abortions increased by 12% in the West, 10% in the Midwest, 8% in the South, and 2% in the Northeast.
