Between 2006-2015, abortion rates dropped significantly, according to new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. Other research suggests that greater access to birth control, due in large part to the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, likely played a role in the decline.
CDC: Abortion Rate Dropped Between 2006-2015
The new data from the CDC compared abortion rates from 52 reporting areas between 2006-2015. In 2006, the abortion rate was 15.9 abortions per 1,000 women. By 2015, the abortion rate had fallen 20%, to 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women.
The greatest decline in abortions was among teenagers ages 15-19, whose abortion rate fell by 54%.
The data did not assess why or how the abortion rate fell, but abortion rights advocates suggest that increased access to contraceptives play a pivotal role. The lower abortion rate among teenagers may also be due to state-level abortion restrictions, such as parental notification laws. Abortion clinics in most states are required to seek some form of parental consent or notification before performing abortions on minors.
The decline is part of an overall trend toward fewer abortions. Meanwhile, in nations that ban abortion, the abortion rate is both rising and higher than in the United States.
How Birth Control, Greater Reproductive Freedoms Lower Abortion Rate
Previous data suggests that reproductive choice, not abortion bans, play a key role in lowering the abortion rate. Data published in 2017, for example, ties a drop in the abortion rate to increased access to contraceptives and reproductive counseling under Obamacare.
The U.S. birth rate recently hit an all-time low. This suggests not that women are deciding to give birth to babies following unexpected pregnancies. Instead, it’s more likely that women aren’t getting pregnant in the first place—compelling evidence that greater contraceptive access and reproductive knowledge play critical roles.
How Progressive Policies Can Decrease Abortion Even More
Not getting pregnant in the first place is always an easier and safer option than dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. Preventing unplanned pregnancies is the single most effective option for further lowering the abortion rate. The tactics that can accomplish this goal are no mystery. Numerous studies have documented that nine specific strategies can decrease abortion. Those strategies are:
- Free access to birth control.
- Comprehensive sex education that includes information on birth control, pleasure, and consent.
- Fostering a consent culture that enables women to decline sex.
- Paid family leave.
- Funding for birth control research.
- More affordable pregnancy care.
- Quality maternal health care.
- More accessible abortion, including allowing midwives to perform abortions.
- Increased access to affordable or free reproductive health care.
Republican leaders consistently oppose all of these policies, confirming what we already know: opposition to abortion has never been about protecting life—the woman’s or the fetus’s. It’s about punishing women, their children, and their families, for having sex.