Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released abortion data for the year 2022. This is the first time that the CDC has released post-Dobbs data on the incidence of abortion. The data show that, in 2022, the number of abortions fell by 3 percent and the abortion rate fell by 2 percent. Good news for pro-lifers.
The main takeaway is that many states’ post-Dobbs policy choices significantly affected the incidence of abortion. There were 15 states whose Heartbeat Acts or abortion bans were in effect for more than a month. Abortions fell in all 15 of these states. Conversely, abortion numbers increased in 26 of the other 31 states that reported abortion data to the CDC.
Sadly, some states saw abortion increases largely because of high numbers of out-of-state women obtaining abortions there. In New Mexico, the number of abortions more than doubled. In Kansas, the number of abortions increased by more than 50 percent. Abortions in Colorado, Delaware, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, and Washington State increased by more than 20 percent.
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Though many states experienced large changes in their abortion totals, some national trends continued. The number of abortions obtained by teenagers fell by 1.1 percent. Chemical abortion, as a fraction of all abortions, continued its upward trend, from 56 percent to 57.3 percent of the total. Additionally, reporting standards remain weak, as Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and California all failed to report abortion data to the CDC.
Data from the Guttmacher Institute and the CDC had shown increases in the incidence of abortion since 2017. These newly released data from the CDC show that, at least in the short term, the Dobbs decision halted that upward trend. Since Dobbs, overall abortion totals have not fallen as quickly as pro-lifers had hoped. That said, birth data from states with strong pro-life laws and these CDC data provide powerful evidence that newly enacted pro-life laws are preventing abortions and saving lives.
LifeNews Note: Michael J. New is an assistant professor at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America and is an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_J_New
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