By Tessa Redmond
Kentucky Today
Two of the nation’s leading compilers of abortion data published unique reports providing insight into U.S. abortion incidence during 2020.
In 2020, a total of 620,327 abortions were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The information was provided by central health agencies for 47 states, the District of Columbia and New York City.
However, because reporting is voluntary and reporting requirements vary by each area, the CDC was unable to compile a definitive total of abortions performed in the United States in 2020.
The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research and policy organization, estimates that three states who did not provide information to the CDC (California, Maryland and New Jersey) accounted for approximately 20% of all abortions that year—rendering the 620,327 lives lost an incomplete figure.
In fact, Guttmacher reported that 930,160 abortions occurred in 2020 in their 2019-2020 Abortion Provider Census (APC), which collected information directly from the facilities that provided abortion services.
And even that figure is a underestimation, according to Guttmacher, because more than 55,000 U.S. residents requested abortion drugs from an online provider and many may have self-managed their abortions without the involvement of an abortion clinic. The APC also did not include some facilities, such as hospitals and physicians’ offices, that provided a small number of abortions in 2020.
Guttmacher found that 1,603 healthcare facilities, including hospitals and physicians’ offices, provided abortions in 2020. While independent clinics were 50% of the facilities performing abortions, they accounted for 96% of all abortions—and 84% of U.S. counties did not have one of these clinics.
Between 2019 and 2020, the CDC reported that the total number of abortions decreased 2%, the abortion rate decreased 2% to 11.2 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 and the abortion ratio increased 2% to 198 terminated pregnancies per 1,000 live births.
Guttmacher reported the 2020 abortion rate as 14.4 per 1,000 women aged 15-44; 2 out of 5 pregnancies (20.6%) ended in abortion. The policy organization also found that most of the increase in abortion incidence occurred between 2017 and 2019, and the figure only increased 1% between 2019 and 2020 (916,460 to 930,160, respectively).
Both reports noted an increase in medical abortions.
Guttmacher noted that medication abortions accounted for 492,210 of total abortions (53%) — a jump from the 39% share last reported in 2017.
According to the CDC, 51% of abortions were performed using medication at 9 weeks’ gestation or earlier; 2.4% additional abortions occurred after 9 weeks’ gestation. Approximately 40% of abortions were performed using surgery before or during the 13th week of gestation, and another 6.7% occurred after 13 week’s gestation. Other methods recorded include intrauterine instillation (241 abortions) and hysterectomy or hysterotomy (72 abortions).
While the Guttmacher Institute compiled information on abortion clinics, total abortions performed and termination method used, only the CDC provided demographic data for the women who sought abortion procedures in 2020.
Women aged 20 to 29 accounted for more than half of abortions (57.2%), and women younger than 15 and 40 or older represented the lowest percentages (27.9% and 29.3%, respectively).
Among 30 areas that reported abortions according to race or ethnicity, Black women procured 130,538 (39.2%) of reported abortions, white women accounted for 108,904 (32.7%) of abortions and Hispanic women reported 70,420 (21.1%) abortions. Women who noted their race or ethnicity as “other” procured the remaining 7% of abortions in 2020.Approximately 13.7% of women were married at the time of their 2020 abortion and 86.3% were unmarried.
In 43 reporting areas, most women had not previously given birth (39.1%), but 308,663 women had given birth to at least one child before their 2020 abortion. A larger majority of women (57.7%) in 42 reporting areas experienced their first abortion in 2020; 24.1% reported one previous induced abortion, 10.5% reported two previous induced abortions and 7.8% reported three or more previous induced abortions.
At least 80.9% of abortions, regardless of method, were performed before or during the 9th gestational week; 93.1% were performed by the end of 13 week’s gestation. Later-term abortions occurring during or after 21 week’s gestation accounted for 0.9% (4,382 abortions) of the total reported from 41 areas.
Read the full CDC report here. View Guttmacher’s Abortion Provider Census here.
