# Abortion statistics, reliable estimates **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 18, 2002, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638 "2002-07-18T15:57:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milton_De_La_Warre)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/1 "2002-07-18T15:57:46Z")
I did a search of past posts, and to my surprise found nothing… Anyway, the question is this: Are there any reliablly accurate statistics or good estimates on the real number of abortions performed in the United States and/or worldwide since a given date (like say, since Roe v. Wade)? No, I am not Jack Chick or Pat Buchanan. But I have heard that Jack Chick’s comic strips maintain there are 45,000,000 abortions performed each year. Presumably he meant world-wide… I also had the misfortune to read a brief excerpt from a book which IIRC was by Pat Buchanan, in which he puts out the figure of 20 million in the USA since Roe v. Wade (and BTW followed it by saying the places of these aborted Americans were filled by immigrants, mostly illegal). So it would seem that opponents of abortion would have it that there is this huge holocaust going on, possibly exagerating the scale of it. Or not? I suspect, but do not know, that there is no requirement to report such procedures to some central data repository. I doubt similarly that we could know exactly how many appendectomies were performed in the US in a given time frame.We might, however, be able to estimate this number fairly reliably. I don’t want a debate as to pro or no, just some good data. ---
**Author:** ![WV\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@WV\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WV_Woman)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/2 "2002-07-19T09:45:28Z")
45 million yearly (worldwide) sounds about right. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/3 "2002-07-19T09:57:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by WV\_Woman \* > \*\*45 million yearly (worldwide) sounds about right. \*\* And your source is…? (out of curiosity) [This CDC/NCHS publication](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_21/sr21_056.pdf) (pdf) published in 2000 claims that in 1996 there were 1.37m induced abortions in the US. [This United Nations publication](http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/doc/unitedstates.doc) (doc) from 2001 claims that there were 1.184m induced abortion in the US in 1997. ---
**Author:** ![WV\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@WV\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WV_Woman)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/4 "2002-07-19T10:36:06Z")
Newsflash, Crusoe: there are other countries besides the US that allow abortion. Lots of them. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/5 "2002-07-19T10:41:47Z")
Newsflash, WV\_Woman: I’d already worked that one out myself. Here’s two more: One, the OP asked for reliable data, not opinions. I have no particular reason to doubt you but you didn’t post a source. Two, the OP asked for data for the US and/or the world as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![WV\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@WV\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WV_Woman)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/6 "2002-07-19T10:46:55Z")
[http://cbrinfo.org/fastfacts.html](http://cbrinfo.org/fastfacts.html) ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/7 "2002-07-19T10:50:25Z")
That source is about as biased as it gets. They claim to quote figures from pro-choice sources (without being absolutely specific) but I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth. No offence meant. ---
**Author:** ![WV\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@WV\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WV_Woman)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/8 "2002-07-19T10:57:53Z")
Mmmhmm. See, this is why I rarely do cites. If it has information that the person doesn’t wanna hear, they start screaming. So what’s the point? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/9 "2002-07-19T11:33:35Z")
If that’s the case, why did you answer the question? To be honest, I don’t have a particular axe to grind. That figure may be completely accurate. I’m just inherently suspicious of any figure provided by or unspecifically quoted by _any_ website with a particular viewpoint (whether pro- or anti-). It’s very difficult to find anything approaching unbiased sources, which is why the UN and CDC were my best efforts. ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/10 "2002-07-19T11:50:11Z")
To be fair to **WV** her site cites the [following site](http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/ib_0599.html) for its information, and The Alan Guttmacher Institute _seems_ to be a fairly sound source of information - at least it is not rabidly pro-life or fundamentalist in its outlook (see [thier misson statement](http://www.agi-usa.org/about/mission.html)) and its main focus seems to be the prevention of unplanned pregnancies rather than preventing abortions. > [@](#): > > …efforts focusing on restricting access to abortion in order to reduce its incidence are misguided; public policy should concentrate on helping women prevent unplanned pregnancies. Grim ---
**Author:** ![Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milton_De_La_Warre)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/11 "2002-07-19T12:25:48Z")
Yes, the CBR link was biased. And GROSS! But it did say worldwide there are 46 million/year, and broke that down into 126K per day. In the US, 1.37 million for 1996, to average 3,700 per day. This partially squares with Crusoe’s CDC cite. So we have some data for a couple of years. This begs the question: Is abortion on the rise (relative to proportion of the population, or in absolute numbers), or is it on the decline? I ask because I would hope increased awareness and the increased availibility of contraception might preclude the necessity for more invasive procedures. Also, how reliable is the data? Is there a requirement to report abortions? If not, are we looking at X million performed and reported, with another Y million estimated but not reported? I have no ax to grind either way, I just want the facts. ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/12 "2002-07-19T12:37:50Z")
In the US at least, abortion is on the decline, due to greater avaliablity of contraceptives: > [@](#): > > Notably, abortion rates are declining in the United States, and have reached their lowest point in 20 years, largely because rates of unintended pregnancy have declined as the result of improved contraceptive use (particularly among teenagers). Yet many women in this country still lack access to affordable contraceptives. In stark contrast to women in developed countries that have universal health insurance, many American women do not have either public or private insurance coverage for contraceptives and cannot afford the high up-front costs associated with many forms of contraception, including the long-lasting and most effective reversible methods. (from my first link above) Here are thier [comments on abortion statistics](http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/ib14.html) (within the USA) - they claim to be the only source (along with the CDC) of nationally valid data on abortions. Grim ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/13 "2002-07-19T12:48:07Z")
> [@](#): > > They claim to quote figures from pro-choice sources (without being absolutely specific) but I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth. No offence meant. I just want to point out that you are only going to get biased figures. From one side or the other. It seems like you are willing to disregard one side only because it is biased and go w/ the other (which is biased in the other direction). Also It seems like no one has come up with a cite that will tell us how many abortions there are per year from the pro right to abortion side - hmmm I wonder why. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/14 "2002-07-19T13:13:56Z")
> [@](#): > > It seems like you are willing to disregard one side only because it is biased and go w/ the other (which is biased in the other direction). **k2dave** : did you actually read my posts? > [@](#): > > To be honest, I don’t have a particular axe to grind. That figure may be completely accurate. I’m just inherently suspicious of any figure provided by or unspecifically quoted by any website with a particular viewpoint (whether pro- or anti-). It’s very difficult to find anything approaching unbiased sources, which is why the UN and CDC were my best efforts. I am not sure how biased the CDC or UN could be. While I won’t deny that they could potentially be biased, they aren’t promoting a particular agenda (well, not as far as I could tell). I would be suspicious of a pro-choice site’s statistics, although potentially less so given that it is in an anti-abortionist’s interest to make the number of abortions sound shocking where no pro-choicer to my knowledge could use numbers to ‘win’ the debate in the same way. Anyway, in a thread where the OP has asked for genuine data, I would not post anything from any source where there was a remotely obvious bias. ---
**Author:** ![Yeah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/dbc845/32.png) [@Yeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeah)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2002, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/15 "2002-07-20T15:26:40Z")
“I would not post anything from any source where there was a remotely obvious bias.” “remotely obvious”??? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2002, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/16 "2002-07-20T17:10:43Z")
Was that bad grammar? It sounded right when I thought it through. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2002, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-statistics-reliable-estimates/119638/17 "2002-07-20T19:12:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by WV\_Woman \* > \*\*Mmmhmm. > > See, this is why I rarely do cites. If it has information that the person doesn’t wanna hear, they start screaming. So what’s the point? \*\* Because, the SDMB is very rigorous when it comes to facts. We want cites, but not just any cites-they must be reputable and unbiased. That’s the whole point of this place. It’s not offensive against you, and it’s not about “not wanting to hear”. It’s about being a skeptic, being VERY discriminating and having high standards.