The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Safe, Legal, and Fewer

Per our discussion about Juno and abortion earlier this week, the Guttmacher Institute announced today that the U.S. abortion rate has declined to its lowest level since 1974—the year after Roe v. Wade was decided. In 2005, the rate was 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44. The absolute number has gone down as well, to 1.2 millon abortions in 2005, which is 25 percent fewer than the high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990. This, I think we can agree, is unvarnished good news. I hope that it speaks to the spreading of the birth control, birth control mantra that Melinda was wisely intoning. The Guttmacher Institute notes, however, that more than one in five pregnancies still ended in abortion in 2005, so we've got a ways to go.