Abortion Rates In US Drop to Lowest Rate On Record

[BvBPL]

The Guttmacher Institute announced a new study showing that the rate of abortions in the US has hit an all time low.

Hurrah! Good news for both sides of the debate!

 

[Borachio]

Doesn't this mean the crime rate will go up in 20 years time?

(The Donohue-Levitt hypothesis.)

 

[Ajidica]

I wonder, has there been an increase in the use of birth control during the same time? If more people are using birth control then it is less likely they will get an unexpected bundle of joy.

 

[Kennigit]

You know, it's nice to actually have a nice well founded article for once that isn't sensationalist nor pushing any one agenda.

Even if the article's summary of criticism against the study could be correct (voluntary data, etc), it covers potential avenues of self-administered misoprostol (some drug), overall birth rate dropping, and maybe apparent increase in long term IUD birth controls.

presents data, gives possible explanations, and acknowledges flaws in methodology, all in a few paragraphs.

A+

 

[Farm Boy]

That would be interesting to know, not sure that it's a flaw in the study, though, if there is no meaningful data to collect and it's acknowledged as an unknown. Given your coat-hangar analogy, do you have any data that actually suggests that this decrease in overall numbers is actually a resurgence of dangerous and illegal abortions with scraping tools, or are you just attempting to score points against people you think you dislike?

 

[GenMarshall]

I'd take a hunch that a poor economy is part of the factor in this.

 

[Zack]

I'd take a hunch that a poor economy is part of the factor in this.

Why ?

EDIT: Here's two graphs - abortion rate and unemployment rate. There's no correlation.

Spoiler :

 

[classical_hero]

I think the title should be worded better, since this is only since the 70's when it was made legal, but before then it was rare indeed.

 

[BvBPL]

The article indicates that abortions in non-clinical setting may have replaced abortions in clinical settings.

I'm not sure I understand what your concerns about the study are.

The study captured incidents on non-clinical abortion with the exception of the use of misoprostol alone. Misoprostol is still a prescription drug in the States so many women who use misoprostol alone do so under the care and oversight of a physician.

The study's authors are aware that incidents of abortions induced through misoprostol were not collected. However, they've noted in their study that such incidents are as yet uncommon and that they believe collecting the incidents would not have significantly affected the ultimate conclusions of the study.

That the study did not collect data on misoprostol use on its own to induce abortions and that the study was upfront with this omission is a good thing because it means next time researchers will know to look for the use of this drug on its own to induce abortions.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think the title should be worded better, since this is only since the 70's when it was made legal, but before then it was rare indeed.

Not at all, or at least not in settlements of any size. Mostly they were just more dangerous.

 

[Zelig]

I think the title should be worded better, since this is only since the 70's when it was made legal, but before then it was rare indeed.

To be really safe pregnancy should probably be made illegal, and everyone sterilized by default. Government can temporarily de-activate the sterilization if they're convinced that an abortion won't happen.