For immediate release: Wednesday, November 23, 2016
ABORTIONS CONTINUE DOWNWARD TREND
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released its annual "Abortion Surveillance Report," for 2013. The report indicates that the number of abortions continues to decline. Relying on reports from state health departments, the CDC reported 664,435 abortions for 2013. While it provides a snapshot into the downward trend in abortions, this figure does not provide a complete picture of abortion in the United States as it does not include abortion data from California, the nation's most populous state, New Hampshire and Maryland.
"The decline in the number of abortions, and in the abortion rates and ratios, is a clear indication that pregnant women are increasingly less likely to see abortion as the desired solution to an unexpected pregnancy," said Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D., National Right to Life director of education and research. "Right-to-life legislative, educational and outreach efforts to increase awareness of the unborn child's humanity certainly continue to play a critical role in the abortion decline."
In addition to the decline in the raw numbers of abortions, the CDC finds that both the abortion rate, (the number of abortions for every 1,000 women of child-bearing age) and the abortion ratio (the number of abortions per 1,000 live births) have declined. In the states included in the report, the CDC found an abortion rate of 12.5 abortions for every 1,000 women aged 15-44. The CDC found a ratio of 200 abortions per 1,000 live births.
Concerning, however, is data that chemical or "medical" abortions continued to rise, a clear indication that the aggressive push of these by the abortion industry and its media allies is having some impact. Though these new abortions are nowhere near as simple and safe as the promoters of the abortion pill have promised, but instead have turned out to be grueling, bloody, and painful, they have enabled the industry to expand abortion to smaller, more lightly staffed locations that may not possess the medical facilities or equipment of larger clinics or doctors with the surgical training to handle chemical abortion complications or failures.
"We give thanks that more women are rejecting abortion and choosing life for their unborn children," said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. "But we must remain vigilant in the face of an abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood, that not only continues to perform hundreds of thousands of abortions every year, but continues to deny the damage abortion does to mothers, their children and our society as a whole."
Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.