For decades, Republicans have marketed themselves as the anti-abortion party. Actual data doesn’t match their hype.
You don’t need a PhD in statistics to see trends in the above table. While US abortion numbers have trended downward since 1990, they drop much faster when Democrats are presidents. There are some very good reasons.
Study after study of international data shows a strong relationship between low cost contraceptive availability and decreased numbers of abortions. Put simply, countries with widely available and cheap contraceptives have lower abortion rates.
The above table shows the impact of varying levels of contraceptive availability and cost in the US when presidents of different parties are in power. Republicans believe abortion restrictions, virginity pledges and abstinence-based teaching will lower the number of abortions. Democrats take a much more realistic view that making contraceptives more available will result in fewer unwanted pregnancies and thereby fewer abortions.
The US abortion rate in 2018 was 13 abortions per 1,000 women, aged 15-44. For comparison, Switzerland has the world’s lowest abortion rate with five abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. We still have a lot of room for improvement.
The Clinton years…
During the eight year Clinton Administration, Title X family planning funding was dramatically increased for five million families. Clinton also signed legislation requiring federal employees’ heath insurance plans to cover contraceptives for 1.2 million women of childbearing age.
In 1999, the Morning After pill (also known as Emergency Contraception or EC) was cleared for sale as a prescription only product. Republicans fought tooth and nail to prevent the sale of Emergency Contraceptives.
The Bush II years…
During the two-term George W. Bush Administration starting in 2001, Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” kept him from cutting Title X family planning services. However, he didn’t implement any policies making contraceptives easier to obtain at a lower cost. The only factor that lowered abortion numbers during the Bush II years were that the Morning After pill could be sold over the counter (instead of as prescription only) to women 18 years old and older.
Consequently, the momentum of decreases in abortions dropped by almost half from the Clinton years. Yet, it should be noted, Bush didn’t do anything to stop the downward trend in annual abortions.
Bush implemented faith based, abstinence only sex education programs in schools. Many church groups also started virginity pledges where young people signed pledges that they would refrain from having sex prior to marriage.
Unfortunately, these abstinence policies were and still are ineffective. One study, Abstinence-only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S found, “Using the most recent national data (2005) from all U.S. states with information on sex education laws or policies (N = 48), we show that increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates. This trend remains significant after accounting for socioeconomic status, teen educational attainment, ethnic composition of the teen population, and availability of Medicaid waivers for family planning services in each state. These data show clearly that abstinence-only education, as a state policy, is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.”
The Obama years…
President Barack Obama became the most effective anti-abortion president in US history during his two terms. A number of events caused the 338,000 plunge in annual abortions during the Obama term. After a long fight with Republicans, in June, 2013, Emergency Contraceptive sales were allowed over the counter to girls of all ages.
However, the most important reason for the huge drop in abortions was the Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obamacare. The ACA required more employers to offer health insurance and in 29 states and the District of Columbia, those insurance packages require coverage of prescription contraception. During the Obama Administration, more than 20 million people gained health insurance thanks to Obamacare. Those 20 million people also gained access to free birth control and contraceptives.
Also lowering abortion numbers during Obama’s term, more women started using Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs). These implants, though more expensive, are 20 times more effective at preventing pregnancies than birth control pills.
Other factors?
During Obama’s term in office, a number of Republican controlled states passed various bills restricting access to abortion. By the end of 2016, Obama’s last year in office, these bills were deemed unconstitutional or were stayed pending further proceedings.
Republicans argue they have lowered abortion access in various states and thereby this is why the number of abortions has dropped. It is true fewer clinics are performing abortions now than in 1992, the last year before Clinton took office. However, this is more likely because of the 666,610 fewer annual abortions (44 percent drop) since 1992 than any state actions.
Does lower availability of abortion clinics limit the number of abortions annually? Twenty-first Century women are willing to travel. For example, in 2015, 49 percent of the abortions performed in Kansas were on women from outside the state. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6713a1.htm
So, if clinic access doesn’t have a substantial impact on the number of abortions performed annually, do state laws making getting abortions more difficult have any impact? In Wisconsin, Republicans passed laws requiring women to meet with a counselor and physician a minimum of 24 hours before getting an abortion. The woman is required to have a separate appointment for the abortion. Women under 18 must have an adult relative over 25 years old with them.
It is doubtful these requirements reduced the number of women getting abortions. Wisconsin abortion numbers increased 3.7 percent in 2017 and another 7 percent in 2018 while most states had fewer abortions.
The natural question to ask Republicans who claim abortion restrictions are causing the number of abortions to drop is, “Where are the babies?”
The US lowered the number of abortions by 666,600 annually since 1992. If this occurred because of clinic closures and abortion restrictions, there should have been 666,600 more babies born in 2017 than in 1992. However, the 3,853,472 live births in the US was the lowest number in 30 years.
The Trump years…
Since taking office in 2017, Donald Trump has done everything possible to reverse the steep decline in annual abortions that took place over the past 30 years. Trump cut Planned Parenthood Title X funding by $60 million. This reduced Planned Parenthood’s funding for education and free contraceptive distribution and did not impact their abortion funding, which is financed by donations.
Trump has repeatedly tried to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. Failing that, he has chipped away at the edges and reduced the number of people able to qualify and getting no-cost contraceptives. Trump has also backed efforts to end the requirement for employer financed health plans to include free contraceptives. And, he is trying to have the Supreme Court rule the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional.
In Trump’s first year in office, abortion numbers dropped by 11,780, the smallest drop in 19 years. It seems like Trump is doing everything in his power to get annual abortions back up to the pre-Obama levels of 1.2 million per year.
Summing-up
Annual abortions don’t drop just because a president has a (D) or (R) after his name. The 44 percent drop in annual US abortions since 1992 has taken place in a dynamic environment.
Abortion numbers drop after new technologies such as Emergency Contraception and Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives come on the market. Incremental drops in abortion numbers happen as Emergency Contraception moves from being a prescription only product for women over 18 to being an over-the-counter contraceptive for women of all ages.
The largest drops in annual abortions occur when birth control is more available and is covered in health insurance plans. It is no coincidence these things happen while Democrats occupy the presidency.
Throughout the period covered in this article, it seems Republicans are more interested in waging war on birth control than on abortion. To any reasonable person, it should be obvious that this is counterproductive.
If we are serious about dramatically reducing the number of future abortions, we need to shed foolish ideas like attempting to outlaw them. “Abortion rates are similar in countries where abortion is highly restricted and where it is broadly legal. The abortion rate is 37 per 1,000 women in countries that prohibit abortion altogether or allow it only to save a woman’s life, and 34 per 1,000 in countries that allow abortion without restriction as to reason—a difference that is not significant. Highly restrictive laws do not eliminate the practice of abortion, but make those that do occur more likely to be unsafe.” Source: Guttmacher Institute
For more information on why laws outlawing abortion in the US will be ineffective, visit https://www.frugalron.com/abortion-sex-and-republicans/
If we want to continue reducing abortion numbers, we need to expand on what works. That means taking advantage of relatively new technologies like the almost fail proof Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives. Most important, make LARCs more available at lower cost.
According to a study, Long-acting reversible contraception (LARC): a practical solution to reduce unintended pregnancy, “In a US study of nearly 10000 women aged 14-45 years, when the three barriers (education, access and cost) were removed 75% of study participants chose a LARC method. As a result, the study reported an 80% reduction in teen births and 75% reduction in abortions among women in the cohort compared to national statistics. If we are serious about reducing unintended pregnancy, we need to be serious about increasing the use of methods that we know work. Greater LARC use and continuation has been proven to effectively reduce unintended pregnancy, including abortion and teen pregnancy” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23689169/
California has the least restrictive abortion laws in the US . Yet, they have dramatically reduced the numbers of teen pregnancies, abortions and the percent of 18 year old girls that have had sex since instituting state wide, science based sex education starting in middle school. This should be a model for the rest of the United States.
While this article has dealt almost exclusively with numbers and statistics, the real cost of abortion is the long lasting angst and stress that abortion decisions place on women and their families. This is the real reason we should continue and accelerate the progress of the last three decades to dramatically further reduce the number of abortions in the US.
