Abortion in sharp decline in US

LA Times/Houston Chronicle:

The most comprehensive study in years of abortion in America underscores a striking change in the landscape, with ever-fewer pregnant women choosing abortion and those who do increasingly opting to avoid surgical clinics.

The number of abortions has plunged to 1.2 million a year, down 25 percent since hitting a peak in 1990, according to a report released today — days before the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

In the early 1980s, nearly one in three pregnant women chose abortion. The most recent data show that proportion is closer to one in five.

"That's a significant drop, and it's encouraging," said Randall O'Bannon, director of education and research for the anti-abortion group National Right to Life.

Women looking to end early pregnancies are gravitating to medication abortions, in which they take two pills under a doctor's supervision to induce miscarriage. This approach lets them avoid surgery — and the protesters who often picket clinics — and expel the embryo in the privacy of their homes.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the pills in 2000 for use through the seventh week of pregnancy.

By 2005, the most recent year covered by the report, the pills accounted for 13 percent of all abortions.

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Abortion-rights advocates suggested women may not be terminating as often because they're avoiding unwanted pregnancies, thanks in part to emergency contraception, known as the morning-after pill, sold without a prescription to women 18 and older.

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Some of the biggest drops in the abortion rate, however, have come in states that do not impose tight restrictions.

Oregon, for instance, was rated this week by Americans United for Life as the nation's "least pro-life state," yet its abortion rate dropped 25 percent from 2000 to 2005 — more than any state except Wyoming.

The data suggest that the decline in abortions may be due not to legal restrictions, but to a shift in "socio-cultural mores" — in other words, women's attitudes, said John Seery, a professor at Pomona College who studies the politics of abortion.

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President Bush has said that abortion want end until we can change what is in peoples heart. I think he is right and that change has started. Even Hollywood is coming around. The goofy Knocked Up in 2007 is one example even if it is not one you would wish on anyone. We still have a ways to go in getting people to the point where they are not making the mistakes that lead to unwanted pregnancy.

The Washington Post story on the new abortion stats has a real Duh moment:

The number of abortions fell at least in part because the proportion of women ending their pregnancies with an abortion dropped 9 percent between 2000 and 2005, hitting the lowest level since 1975, according to a nationwide survey.

Who would have thought it?