The U.S. abortion rate has dropped by more than one third over the previous two decades to a record low, federal officials reported Friday.
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The lead author of the report, Sally Curtin, a statistician for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics specified the numbers by stating that there had only been 17.7 procedures per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44.
Pregnancy rates were highest for women aged 25-29 followed by women aged 20-24, with declines of 12% and 27%, respectively, since 1990.
Stating the data, Curtin said that the figures signify that this is the lowest abortion rate CDC has registered in U.S. ever since it started tracking the abortion procedures back in the year 1976.
The pregnancy rate hit a low of all time in 2010 said the report. Teenagers 15-19 had a 50% reduction in pregnancy rates.
“These declines that are documented here are showing predate the uptick the majority of the implementation of restrictions in states between 2011 and 2013”, Guttmacher Institute’s principle research scientist and an author of the report, Kathryn Kost, told The Independent.
Another factor that Kost suggested was of consideration was that the number of unintended pregnancies had also fallen across the board.
“That indicates that fewer girls are becoming pregnant when they do not need to”.
With the numerous birth control methods available today, from condoms to pills and injections, there is no wonder the rates of the CDC report are down for pregnancies as well as those for abortions.
Pregnancy rates for women under age 30 were lower in 2010 compared with 1990.
Randall O’Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund added that the attitude of people and the society had also changed towards abortion.
Pro-life pregnancy care locations have provided many alternatives to the abortion such as financial assistance school assistance and adoption. “We’d already been finding these declines”.
By all measures, the abortion rate is at a historic low, the CDC says.
In comparison to 1990 when these numbers were tracked last, pregnancy rates pegged down for women who are below 30 years of age and specially teens who are 14 or below and showed a 67% reduction.
“This is the first time it dropped below 100”, Curtin said.
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Live births declined by 10 percent between 1990 and 2010, while fetal loss rates remained relatively constant, according to data in the report.
