New Research Shows Abortion Rates Decreasing But Not Among Poor Women

The Guttmacher Institute: Abortion Rate Increasing Among Poor Women, Even as it Decreases Among Most Other Groups, by Rebecca Wind:

Substantial Decline Seen Among African American Women

New Guttmacher research finds that abortion rates declined among most groups of women between 2000 and 2008. However, one notable exception was poor women (those with family incomes less than 100% of the federal poverty level). Poor women accounted for 42% of all abortions in 2008, and their abortion rate increased 18% between 2000 and 2008, from 44.4 to 52.2 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44. In comparison, the national abortion rate for 2008 was 19.6 per 1,000, reflecting an 8% decline from a rate of 21.3 in 2000. Abortion rates decreased 18% among African American women in the same period, the largest decline among the four racial and ethnic groups examined. Notwithstanding this decline, the abortion rate among African American women is higher than the rate for both Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women: 40.2 per 1,000, compared with 28.7 and 11.5, respectively. . . .