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

Reasons for the Abortion Decline

Good question, Juliet, about whether the decline in abortions can be attributed to the decline in the number of clinics. You're right about the latter. In her recent book This Common Secret, Susan Wicklund says that ”between 1982 and 2000, the number of abortion providers in the United States declined from 2900 to 1819, a drop of 37 percent, and thetrend has continued since." Wicklund also notes that "in 2004, almost 60 percent of abortion providers were more than fifty years old.”

The Guttmacher Institute, which puts out the abortion stats, discusses barriers to acess in certain parts of the country as a possible explanation for the fall. But the Gutt folks don't think there's a direct cause-and-effect link. They point out that the abortion rate declined much faster (by 9 percent) than the number of providers (2 percent). Also, as Will Saletan notes, the rate is down in some pro-choice states and some states in which there was an increase in providers—California, Georgia, and New York. And there were also three states in which the abortion rate increased despite a decrease in providers—Alaska, Colorado, and Connecticut. So this doesn't look like the most plausible explanation.