In
2020, one in every five pregnancies in the United States will be aborted.
According
to numbers released Wednesday, the number and rate of abortions in the United
States climbed from 2017 to 2020 after a long fall.
According
to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research organisation, more than
930,000 abortions will be performed in the United States year 2020.
This
is up from around 862,000 abortions in 2017 when national abortion figures were
at their lowest since the 1973 US Supreme Court judgement legalising the
procedure across the country.
According
to the analysis, about one in every five pregnancies in 2020 resulted in
abortion, which comes as the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn that decision.
"The
amount of women seeking abortions demonstrates a need and emphasises how
catastrophic a Supreme Court judgement will be for access to an absolutely
critical treatment," said Sara Rosenbaum, health law and policy professor
at George Washington University.
Medication
abortions, also known as the abortion pill, accounted for 54% of all abortions
in the United States in 2020, the first time they accounted for more than half
of all abortions, according to Guttmacher.
According
to the report, the COVID-19 epidemic may have pulled down the numbers in some
states.
Abortions
in New York climbed from 2017 to 2019, then decreased by 6% between 2019 and
2020. In 2020, one out of every ten abortion facilities in New York will cease
or end their services.
Between
2019 and 2020, Texas witnessed a 2% drop in abortions, which coincided with the
state's pandemic-related abortion restrictions.
Some
experts believe the epidemic has hampered the availability of contraception in
other areas or has discouraged women from visiting all of the health care providers
involved in a pregnancy.
Abortions,
on the other hand, were already on the rise before the coronavirus wreaked
havoc on people's lives. One explanation is that some states have made abortion
more accessible through Medicaid.
In
January 2018, Illinois, for example, began enabling state Medicaid dollars to
be used to pay for abortions. Between 2017 and 2020, the number of abortions in
the state increased by 25%.
Abortions
declined significantly in adjacent Missouri, yet the number of Missouri people
travelling to Illinois for abortions surged to over 6,500.
If
states fund abortions, I hope they also consider ways to assist childbirth so
that a woman does not believe abortion is the best or only option, said Carol
Tobias, president of the pro-life National Right to Life Committee.
Every
three years, Guttmacher conducts the nation's most comprehensive study of
abortion providers. The total is regarded as more complete than data from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which leaves out several states,
including California, the most populated state in the country.
According
to the study, fewer women were becoming pregnant in 2020, and a greater
percentage of them chose abortion. There were 3.6 million births, down from 3.7
million in 2017.
In
2020, 14.4 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 had an abortion, up from 13.5 per
1,000 women in 2017.
The
number of abortions grew by 12% in the West, 10% in the Midwest, 8% in the
South, and 2% in the Northeast.