Is a lower abortion rate better?
Access to contraception doesn’t bring the abortion rate down. Restricting access to abortion services does. Jennie Bristow, editor of Abortion Review, looks at some of the implications of the USA’s declining abortion rate. Recent research from the US Guttmacher Institute has revealed that the US abortion rate is steadily declining, but that abortions are becoming more concentrated among certain demographic sub-groups: specifically, women of colour and low-income women. (1) One might expect this thought-provoking finding to lead to a number of questions and discussion points; but the convoluted conclusions drawn by the anti-abortion lobby are rather unexpected. The Guttmacher research, Trends in the Characteristics of Women Obtaining Abortions, 1974 to 2004, (2) found that the rate of abortion in the United States is at its lowest level since 1974, having declined 33% from a peak of 29 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in 1980 to 20 per 1,000 in 2004. But while abortion rates have de
