We already knew the sky wasn’t falling, but here’s more good news:
The abortion rate in the USA has dropped to its lowest level since the procedure became legal in 1973, according to a new data analysis that reflects a 13% decline in both the abortion rate and the number of abortions from 2008 to 2011.
The report being issued Monday by the Guttmacher Institute in New York finds the 2011 rate declined to 16.9 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44, second only to 1973, when the rate was 16.3 per 1,000. Declines were seen in all but six states — Alaska, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Wyoming — which saw either no change or an increase in abortion rates.
While many will claim that it’s new laws leading to this result, that’s likely not the case:
Guttmacher’s analysis this year is the first to study state restrictions, many of which increased beginning in 2011. The report says states enacted 205 abortion restrictions between 2011 and 2013, more than in the entire previous decade combined. However, the 2008-11 study period doesn’t include that surge because many restrictions didn’t take effect until late 2011 or later. During the study period, 106 new abortion restrictions were implemented.
“We didn’t find any clear associations between abortion restrictions and declines in abortion rates,” Jones says. “We saw drops in abortions in the states that had restrictions, but they were not substantially bigger than what we saw in other states.”
“No evidence was found that the overall drop in abortion incidence was related to the decrease in providers or to restrictions implemented between 2008 and 2011,” the report says.”
But I’m sure the media will find a way to spin this into horrible news.
