Abortion Incidence and Service Availability In the United States, 2011

Abstract

CONTEXT-National and state-level information about abortion incidence can help inform policies and programs intended to reduce levels of unintended pregnancy. [2015][2016], all U.S. facilities known or expected to have provided abortion services in 2013 or 2014 were surveyed. Data on the number of abortions were combined with population data to estimate national and state-level abortion rates. The number of abortionproviding facilities and changes since a similar 2011 survey were also assessed. The number and type of new abortion restrictions were examined in the states that had experienced the largest proportionate changes in clinics providing abortion services. METHODS-In RESULTS-In 2014, an estimated 926,200 abortions were performed in the United States, 12% fewer than in 2011; the 2014 abortion rate was 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, representing a 14% decline over this period. The number of clinics providing abortions declined 6% between 2011 and 2014, and declines were steepest in the Midwest (22%) and the South (13%). Early medication abortions accounted for 31% of nonhospital abortions, up from 24% in 2011. Most states that experienced the largest proportionate declines in the number of clinics providing abortions had enacted one or more new restrictions during the study period, but reductions were not always associated with declines in abortion incidence. CONCLUSIONS-The relationship between abortion access, as measured by the number of clinics, and abortion rates is not straightforward. Further research is needed to understand the decline in abortion incidence.Information about abortion incidence in the United States is necessary to estimate accurate pregnancy rates and to determine rates of unintended pregnancy. 1 In 2011, there were 1.06 million abortions, and 21% of pregnancies were terminated. 2 These figures reveal that abortion is not uncommon. Abortion incidence in 2011 was remarkable for several reasons. Between 1990 and 2008, the abortion rate declined an average of 2% per year, 3 but between 2008 and 2011, it dropped 13%. 2 Fewer women had abortions in 2011 than in 2008 because fewer women became pregnant when they did not want to: Over this period, the proportionThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is noncommercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.Author contact: rjones@guttmacher.org. Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher's website. 4 and this trend continued, albeit at a slightly slower pace, through 2012. 5 The proportion of clients obtaining LARC methods at Title X-supported family planning clinics rose from 7% in 2011 to 11% in 2014. 6 Clients at Title X-supported facilities are disproportionately young and low-income, 7 and these populations account for the majority of unintended pregnancies. 1 Thus, even relati...

Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2013

“…First, because reporting requirements are established by the individual reporting areas (21), the collection of data varies and CDC is unable to obtain the total number of abortions performed in the United States. During the period covered by this report, the total annual number of abortions reported to CDC was consistently approximately 70% of the number recorded by the Guttmacher Institute (15,67), which uses numerous active follow-up techniques to increase the completeness of the data obtained through its periodic national census of abortion providers (15). Although most reporting areas collect and send abortion data to CDC, this information is submitted to CDC voluntarily.…”

“…For 1998-2012, abortion surveillance data reported to CDC cannot be used alone to calculate national case-fatality rates (number of legal induced abortion-related deaths per 100,000 reported legal induced abortions in the United States) because certain states § § did not report abortion data every year during this period. Thus, national legal induced abortion case-fatality rates were calculated with denominator data from a more complete source on the total number of abortions performed in the United States (15). Because rates determined on the basis of a numerator of <20 deaths are highly variable (38), national legal induced abortion case-fatality rates were calculated for consecutive 5-year periods during 1973-2012.…”

“…However, the incidence of abortion has varied considerably across demographic subpopulations (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Moreover, during 2006-2008, a break occurred in the previously sustained pattern of decrease (11)(12)(13)(14), although this break has been followed in all subsequent years by even greater decreases (15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Continued surveillance is needed to monitor long-term changes in the incidence of abortion in the United States.…”

Prevalence and risk factors of abortion among a sample of married women in Kurdistan Region of Iraq

“…According to the demographic and health survey in Turkey, the rate of abortion among ever married women were 21%. 13 Jones and Jerman 14 conducted a study to determine abortion incidence and service availability in the United States indicated that the abortion ratio was 21% among women aged 15-44 in 2011. Moreover, the rate of abortion in Russia was found to be 38.5% in 2011.…”

Pain Control of Medical Abortion with Misoprostol in the First Trimester of Pregnancy

“…A group of women have severe and intolerable abortion pain however the pain can control easily in medical abortion during first and second-trimester of the pregnancy. In US the abortion rate is estimated approximately 1.1 million in 2011 and 2.8 -2.9% of 15-44 years old women have applied abortion worldwide each year between 2003 and 2008 [7,8]. It is estimated that 43% of American women experience at least one abortion in the childbearing age [9].…”