Abortion

Nearly half (49%) of all pregnancies that occur in the United States are not intended, and about half of unintended pregnancies are resolved by abortions. Most (58%) of the women who have abortions had been using some form of birth control but became pregnant because of the failure or misuse of the birth control product/method. By the age of forty-five, about 43 percent of women in the United States have experienced at least one abortion. Among the women choosing to have abortions at a given time, nearly half (43%) have had at least one previous abortion.

There is not one particular type of woman who is likely to have an abortion. More than half (55%) of the women having abortions have had at least one child already. About two-thirds of the women having abortions have never been married. The majority (52%) are younger than age twenty-five, but only 20 percent are teenagers.

Women of all racial and religious groups obtain abortions. The largest number (60%) of abortions are performed on white women, but black women are three times as likely and Hispanic women twice as likely as white women to have an abortion in a given year. Catholic women are equally likely to have abortions as all women nationwide, but the rate of induced abortion for Catholic women is actually 29 percent higher than the rate for Protestant women.

Abortions occur for many reasons, and women tend to have multiple explanations for their abortion decisions. The most common reason, given by three-quarters of women having abortions, is that having a baby at that time in their lives would conflict with major responsibilities such as work or school. Two-thirds of women having abortions give economic reasons for delaying or foregoing parenthood. Half of the women choosing abortion do not have the supportive relationship that they would like for becoming a parent—either they do not want to start out as a single mother or they are having problems in their relationship with a husband or partner. Approximately 14,000 women a year choose abortions to terminate pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.