Who is aborting their baby?
NEW YORK — In American pop culture, the face of abortion is often a frightened teenager, nervously choosing to terminate an unexpected pregnancy. The numbers tell a far more complex story in which financial stress can play a pivotal role.
Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older. Only about 17 percent are teens. About 60 percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion.
A disproportionately high number are minorities. And regardless of ethnicity, high abortion rates are linked to hard times.
"It doesn't just happen to young people, it doesn't necessarily have to do with irresponsibility," said Miriam Inocencio, president of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island. "Women face years and years of reproductive life after they've completed their families, and they're at risk of an unintended pregnancy that can create an economic strain."
The American dream
In recent years, the number of abortions has fallen; the 1.2 million tallied for 2005 was down 8 percent from 2000, and the per-capita abortion rate was the lowest since 1974. But overall, since the Roe ruling on Jan. 22, 1973, there have been roughly 50 million abortions in the United States, and more than one-third of adult women are estimated to have had at least one.
Who are these women?
Much of the public debate focuses on teens, as evidenced by the constant wrangling over parental notification laws and movies like the current hit Juno, in which the pregnant heroine heads to an abortion clinic, then decides to have the baby.
In fact, the women come from virtually every demographic sector. But year after year the statistics reveal that black women and economically struggling women — who have above-average rates of unintended pregnancies — are far more likely than others to have abortions. About 13 percent of American women are black, yet new figures from the Centers for Disease Control show they account for 35 percent of the abortions.
Black abortion opponents depict this phenomenon in dire terms — "genocide" and "holocaust," for example. Often, however, the women getting the abortions maintain they act in the interests of children they already have.
"It wasn't a hard decision for me to make, because I knew where I wanted to go in my life — I've never regretted it," said Kimberly Mathias, 28, a black single mother from Missouri.
By contrast, Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., calls herself a "reformed murderer" for undergoing two abortions when she was young.
Now an outspoken abortion opponent, King says the best way to reduce abortions among black women is to dissuade more of them from premarital sex.
Dr. Vanessa Cullins, a black physician who is Planned Parenthood's national vice president for medical affairs, thinks allegations of "black genocide" do not help women meet day-to-day challenges.
"These actions take attention away from medically proven ways to reduce unintended pregnancy — comprehensive sex education, affordable birth control, and open and honest conversations about relationships," she said
Looking beyond racial dividing lines, Cullins views the right to abortion as an important component in the ability of all American women to determine the right size for their family.
"Groups that become assimilated in U.S. culture and experience economic opportunities naturally decide to limit family size, because they want to take part in the American dream," she said. "If you're a single mother, achieving the dream is all the harder, so it makes sense to limit family size so you can shower as much support as you can on the children you have."
A 'prudent choice'
Georgette Forney, who had an abortion when she was 16 and is now an abortion opponent leading Anglicans for Life, says she often sees economic pressures triggering abortions, even in middle-class families.
"We've begun to depend on abortions," Forney said. "We feel we have to choose between our unborn child and our born children."
Martha Girard, on the other hand, says she's appalled by the notion that women should lose the right to choose.
A hospital ultrasound technician from Pleasant Prairie, Wis., and a mother of three, Girard had an abortion two years ago, at the age of 44, when she mistakenly thought she was too old to get pregnant.
Having been through three difficult pregnancies previously, and coping with a mentally disabled eldest son, she felt abortion was the prudent choice.
"I knew that this pregnancy would end up badly — I could feel it — and we've already got enough problems with the mentally ill son," Girard said.
Even among many abortion opponents, the Guttmacher Institute — which supports abortion rights — is considered the nation's best source of abortion statistics.
Federal statistics do not include California, the most populous state, because its government does not provide data. But Guttmacher researchers surveyed abortion providers there as well as in other states to produce the latest national estimate of 1.2 million abortions in 2005. That's down from a peak of 1.6 million in 1990 but still represents more than 20 percent of all pregnancies.
When wealthy women abort
One of the Guttmacher's top researchers, Stanley Henshaw, said the recent drop may disguise the fact that abortion rates remain relatively high for black American and Hispanic women.
He believes the most effective countermeasure would be wider availability of contraceptives such as intrauterine device, or IUDs, that don't require attention as frequently as condoms or birth-control pills.
Though abortion is commonplace across the country, urban areas have far higher rates than rural areas where access to abortion providers can be difficult.
New York, New Jersey, California, Delaware, Nevada, Maryland and Florida had the highest abortion rates in 2005, according to the new Guttmacher report released this week. Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota and Mississippi had the lowest rates — the latter two states have just a single abortion clinic in operation.
Susan Hill, founder of the National Women's Health Organization that runs the remaining Mississippi clinic, says the statistics may not fully reflect a subgroup of relatively affluent women who obtain unreported abortions through their private doctors.
"In Mississippi, it's the poor women who don't have access to that who have to run through the maze of protesters screaming and yelling abuse," Hill said. "Wealthier women can be more creative about their alternatives."
The demographics
According to Guttmacher data, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level is more than four times higher than among women from middle-income and affluent households.
An increasing number of women avoid surgery by using the RU-486 abortion pill or other early medication — these now account for about 13 percent of all abortions.
Of all U.S. women getting abortions, about 54 percent are doing so for the first time, while one-fifth have had at least two previous abortions. Of those over the age of 20, the majority have attended college. Almost a third those women have been married at some point. About 60 percent have at least one child; one-third have two or more.
"I don't think most people understand that these are women who have families, who are making a very serious decision about their reproductive health," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "The stereotype is that the decision is made lightly. It is not."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5468449.html
Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older. Only about 17 percent are teens. About 60 percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion.
A disproportionately high number are minorities. And regardless of ethnicity, high abortion rates are linked to hard times.
"It doesn't just happen to young people, it doesn't necessarily have to do with irresponsibility," said Miriam Inocencio, president of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island. "Women face years and years of reproductive life after they've completed their families, and they're at risk of an unintended pregnancy that can create an economic strain."
The American dream
In recent years, the number of abortions has fallen; the 1.2 million tallied for 2005 was down 8 percent from 2000, and the per-capita abortion rate was the lowest since 1974. But overall, since the Roe ruling on Jan. 22, 1973, there have been roughly 50 million abortions in the United States, and more than one-third of adult women are estimated to have had at least one.
Who are these women?
Much of the public debate focuses on teens, as evidenced by the constant wrangling over parental notification laws and movies like the current hit Juno, in which the pregnant heroine heads to an abortion clinic, then decides to have the baby.
In fact, the women come from virtually every demographic sector. But year after year the statistics reveal that black women and economically struggling women — who have above-average rates of unintended pregnancies — are far more likely than others to have abortions. About 13 percent of American women are black, yet new figures from the Centers for Disease Control show they account for 35 percent of the abortions.
Black abortion opponents depict this phenomenon in dire terms — "genocide" and "holocaust," for example. Often, however, the women getting the abortions maintain they act in the interests of children they already have.
"It wasn't a hard decision for me to make, because I knew where I wanted to go in my life — I've never regretted it," said Kimberly Mathias, 28, a black single mother from Missouri.
By contrast, Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., calls herself a "reformed murderer" for undergoing two abortions when she was young.
Now an outspoken abortion opponent, King says the best way to reduce abortions among black women is to dissuade more of them from premarital sex.
Dr. Vanessa Cullins, a black physician who is Planned Parenthood's national vice president for medical affairs, thinks allegations of "black genocide" do not help women meet day-to-day challenges.
"These actions take attention away from medically proven ways to reduce unintended pregnancy — comprehensive sex education, affordable birth control, and open and honest conversations about relationships," she said
Looking beyond racial dividing lines, Cullins views the right to abortion as an important component in the ability of all American women to determine the right size for their family.
"Groups that become assimilated in U.S. culture and experience economic opportunities naturally decide to limit family size, because they want to take part in the American dream," she said. "If you're a single mother, achieving the dream is all the harder, so it makes sense to limit family size so you can shower as much support as you can on the children you have."
A 'prudent choice'
Georgette Forney, who had an abortion when she was 16 and is now an abortion opponent leading Anglicans for Life, says she often sees economic pressures triggering abortions, even in middle-class families.
"We've begun to depend on abortions," Forney said. "We feel we have to choose between our unborn child and our born children."
Martha Girard, on the other hand, says she's appalled by the notion that women should lose the right to choose.
A hospital ultrasound technician from Pleasant Prairie, Wis., and a mother of three, Girard had an abortion two years ago, at the age of 44, when she mistakenly thought she was too old to get pregnant.
Having been through three difficult pregnancies previously, and coping with a mentally disabled eldest son, she felt abortion was the prudent choice.
"I knew that this pregnancy would end up badly — I could feel it — and we've already got enough problems with the mentally ill son," Girard said.
Even among many abortion opponents, the Guttmacher Institute — which supports abortion rights — is considered the nation's best source of abortion statistics.
Federal statistics do not include California, the most populous state, because its government does not provide data. But Guttmacher researchers surveyed abortion providers there as well as in other states to produce the latest national estimate of 1.2 million abortions in 2005. That's down from a peak of 1.6 million in 1990 but still represents more than 20 percent of all pregnancies.
When wealthy women abort
One of the Guttmacher's top researchers, Stanley Henshaw, said the recent drop may disguise the fact that abortion rates remain relatively high for black American and Hispanic women.
He believes the most effective countermeasure would be wider availability of contraceptives such as intrauterine device, or IUDs, that don't require attention as frequently as condoms or birth-control pills.
Though abortion is commonplace across the country, urban areas have far higher rates than rural areas where access to abortion providers can be difficult.
New York, New Jersey, California, Delaware, Nevada, Maryland and Florida had the highest abortion rates in 2005, according to the new Guttmacher report released this week. Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota and Mississippi had the lowest rates — the latter two states have just a single abortion clinic in operation.
Susan Hill, founder of the National Women's Health Organization that runs the remaining Mississippi clinic, says the statistics may not fully reflect a subgroup of relatively affluent women who obtain unreported abortions through their private doctors.
"In Mississippi, it's the poor women who don't have access to that who have to run through the maze of protesters screaming and yelling abuse," Hill said. "Wealthier women can be more creative about their alternatives."
The demographics
According to Guttmacher data, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level is more than four times higher than among women from middle-income and affluent households.
An increasing number of women avoid surgery by using the RU-486 abortion pill or other early medication — these now account for about 13 percent of all abortions.
Of all U.S. women getting abortions, about 54 percent are doing so for the first time, while one-fifth have had at least two previous abortions. Of those over the age of 20, the majority have attended college. Almost a third those women have been married at some point. About 60 percent have at least one child; one-third have two or more.
"I don't think most people understand that these are women who have families, who are making a very serious decision about their reproductive health," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "The stereotype is that the decision is made lightly. It is not."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5468449.html
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