National Right to Life Committee, 2023

Reported Annual Abortions 1973-2020

There are two basic courses on abortion data in the U.S.:

• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) publishes yearly, but relies on voluntary reports from state health departments (and New York City, Washington, D.C.). It has been missing data from California, New Hampshire, and at least one other state since 1998.
• The Guttmacher Institute (GI) contacts abortion clinics directly for data but does not always survey every year.
• Because it surveys clinics directly and includes data from all 50 states, most researchers believe Guttmacher’s numbers to be more reliable, though Guttmacher still believes it may miss some abortions.

While both Guttmacher and the CDC show big drops over the last 30 years, recent years show increases.

• Total abortions dropped 29.8 percent from 1998 to 2020 with the CDC, and fell 42.2 percent from 1990 to 2020 with GI.
• The abortion rate for 2020 for GI was 14.4 abortions for every 1,000 women of reproductive (15-44), less than half that of the high of 29.3 in 1981. While up since 2017 (13.5), it is still lower than when abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1973 (16.3).
• GI says there were 20.6 abortions for every 100 pregnancies ending in live birth or abortion in 2020, up from 18.3 in 2016, the lowest abortion ratio since 1972.
• GI says that abortion “providers” rose slightly to 1,603 in 2020 from 1,587 in 2017. The high was 2,918 in 1982.
• According to the GI, more than half (53 percent) of aboritons were done with chemical abortifacients like mifepristone in 2020. It had been just 16.4 percent as recently as 2008.
• In June 2022, Dobbs overturned Roe, activating “trigger laws” in some states offering the unborn full protection or otherwise limiting abortion. Many clinics closed, but some women went to other states or ordered abortion pills online.

Reported Annual Abortions – 1973-2022

 

YEAR	GI	CDC
1973	744,610	615,831
1974	898,570	763,476
1975	1,034,170	854,853
1976	1,179,300	988,267
1977	1,316,700	1,079,430
1978	1,409,600	1,157,776
1979	1,497,670	1,251,921
1980	1,553,890	1,297,606
1981	1,577,340	1,300,760
1982	1,573,920	1,303,980
1983	1,575,000	1,268,987
1984	1,577,180	1,333,521
1985	1,588,550	1,328,570
1986	1,574,000	1,328,112
1987	1,559,110	1,353,671
1988	1,590,750	1,371,285
1989	1,566,900	1,396,658
1990	1,608,600	1,429,247
1991	1,556,510	1,388,937
1992	1,528,930	1,359,146
1993	1,495,000	1,330,414
1994	1,423,000	1,267,415
1995	1,359,400	1,210,883
1996	1,360,160	1,225,937
1997	1,335,000	1,186,039
1998	1,319,000	884,273 *
1999	1,314,800	861,789 *
2000	1,312,990	857,475 *
2001	1,291,000	853,485 *
2002	1,269,000	854,122 *
2003	1,250,000	848,163 *
2004	1,222,100	839,226 *
2005	1,206,200	820,151 *
2006	1,242,200	846,181 *
2007	1,209,640	827,609 *
2008	1,212,350	825,564 *
2009	1,151,600	789,116 *
2010	1,102,670	765,651 *
2011	1,058,490	730,322 *
2012	1,011,000	699,202 *
2013	958,700	664,435 *
2014	926,190	652,639 *
2015	899,500	638,169 *
2016	874,100	623,471 *
2017	862,320	612,719 *
2018	871,806 **	619,591 *
2019	916,160	629,898 *
2020	930,160	620,327 *
2021	930,160 **
2022	900,414 **

Updated: January 2023

National Right to Life — Abortion Statistics: United States Data and Trends, January 2023

The report is available from the National Right to Life Communications Department here: http://www.nrlc.org/uploads/communications/stateofabortion2023.pdf

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