MEDIA KITS
An Overview of Abortion in the United States
NEWS RELEASES
Abortion on the Rise in Mexico Despite Legal Restrictions
(10/06/2008)
New Report Documents 30-Year U.S. Trends in Abortion
(09/23/2008)
Review Finds No Evidence to Support Funding of Rigid Abstinence-Only Programs
(09/16/2008)
EVIDENCE CHECK
Advisory on the Mental Health Impact of Abortion (October 2008)
Based on the best scientific evidence currently available, there is no credible evidence that abortion, in and of itself, causes mental health problems for most women.
Review of Key Findings of "Emerging Answers 2007" (November 2007)
Review of an authoritative report on the effectiveness of sex education programs concluding that there is not sufficient evidence to justify the widespread dissemination of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
Advisory on Zogby Poll Commissioned by NAEA (July 2007)
Review of a biased survey conducted by Zogby International on behalf of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) in May 2007 that purports to show broad public support for abstinence-only education.
NEWS IN CONTEXT
U.S. Government Blocks Contraceptive Services in Africa
Celebrating the Worldwide Benefits of Contraception
Legal Abortion Upheld in Mexico City
State Legislative Trends at Midyear 2008
U.S. Government Blocks Contraceptive Services in Africa
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) instructed its staff this month to pressure at least six African governments to withhold U.S.-funded contraceptives from London-based Marie Stopes International (MSI), one of the world’s leading providers of family planning services in developing countries. This is the latest move by the Bush administration in a progression of increasingly restrictive family planning policy decisions that put politics first and women’s needs last.
This directive from the Bush administration takes a broader reading of the Kemp-Kasten amendment—which prohibits foreign aid for any organization that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization”—than has ever before been applied. The administration alleges that MSI’s work in China with UNFPA violates Kemp-Kasten, basing its decision to deny even indirect support of MSI’s programs on the same unfounded rationale it has used to defund UNFPA since 2002.
Though the stated purpose of this action is to reduce abortion, the effect will likely be the opposite. The impact of African ministries of health refusing to provide condoms, intrauterine devices and other contraceptives (including those donated to the ministries from other governments, as has been reported) to MSI clinics will leave some countries unable to meet the national demand for contraceptives. For instance, MSI provides a quarter of contraceptive services in Malawi. In Sierra Leone, where MSI is a major provider of contraceptives, supplies are expected to run out as soon as November, leaving 10,000 women who typically rely on MSI clinics with no access to birth control.
“These supplies, donated by the U.S. government in the name of the American people, will likely expire on the shelves of national storage centers before countries are able to put in place alternative distribution systems,” said Dr. Sharon Camp, president of the Guttmacher Institute. “In the meantime, the people of Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe will be left at increased risk of unintended pregnancy and HIV/AIDS.”
More than 100 million married women living in developing countries have an unmet need for contraceptives, according to a recent study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute. Unmet need is greatest, and has declined the least, in Sub-Saharan Africa, where high rates of unintended pregnancy lead to high rates of unsafe abortion. A recent Guttmacher-WHO study confirms that broad access to contraceptives is linked to a reduced need for abortion. The lowest abortion rate in the world in 2003 was in Western Europe (12 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44), where contraceptive services and use are widespread and abortion is legal under broad grounds, safe and easily accessible.
Click here for more information on:
The unmet need for contraception in developing countries
The facts on abortion worldwide
The broad benefits of investing in international family planning assistance
Celebrating the Worldwide Benefits of Contraception
September 26 marks World Contraception Day, which highlights the many ways using modern birth control methods benefits women and their partners. Access to contraceptives allows couples worldwide to make responsible decisions about when to become parents and also helps secure women’s full and equal participation in modern society. Using any form of contraception dramatically reduces a woman’s chance of getting pregnant and either having an abortion or giving birth to a child she did not intend. The most effective methods virtually eliminate that risk.
Contraceptive use in the United States
- Women who use contraceptives have far fewer unintended pregnancies and, by extension, abortions than do nonusers. About half of all unintended pregnancies in the United States occur among the small proportion (11%) of sexually active women who were not using any form of contraception in the month they got pregnant.
- Americans understand the value and benefits of contraception and overwhelmingly support and use it. In the United States, 98% of sexually active Americans use a method at some point in their lives. But finding the right method can be challenging for many women, and using contraceptives consistently and correctly over a lifetime is difficult.
- Unintended pregnancy and abortion are increasingly becoming concentrated among low-income and minority women, who often lack access to high-quality contraceptive counseling and services. This underscores the urgent need to increase investments in subsidized family planning services through the federal Title X program, as well as by increasing eligibility for such services under Medicaid.
- Publicly funded family planning clinic services already enable U.S. women to prevent 1.4 million unintended pregnancies each year, an estimated 600,000 of which would end in abortion. Without these services, the annual number of unintended pregnancies and abortions would be nearly 50% higher. Among many other benefits, family planning clinic services also save $4.3 billion in public funds each year.
Contraceptive use worldwide
- In the developing world, unplanned pregnancies are mainly the result of low rates of contraceptive use. About 200 million women worldwide have an unmet need for effective methods of contraception.
- Worldwide, a third or more of all pregnancies are unplanned, resulting in high rates of abortions that are often unsafe when they occur in developing countries. Abortion rates are lowest in Western Europe, where effective contraceptive use is very high. In contrast, abortion rates are much higher in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, where contraceptive use is low, notwithstanding the fact that abortion in these regions is highly restricted.
- The United States and other industrialized countries should greatly increase their investment in international family planning assistance. The many benefits of such programs include better maternal health and child survival; less recourse to abortion, especially unsafe abortion; and more protection against sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS. Family planning assistance also fosters social and economic development and helps safeguard the environment.
Click here for more information on:
The facts on contraceptive use in the United States
The facts on publicly funded contraceptive services in the United States
Improving contraceptive use in the United States
The broad benefits of investing in international family planning assistance
Unmet need for contraceptives in developing countries
Legal Abortion Upheld in Mexico City
By a vote of 8 to 3, the Supreme Court of Mexico recently affirmed the federal district of Mexico City’s right to legalize abortion, confirming that the legal status of the procedure can be determined at the state level. In effect since April 2007, the Mexico City law allows providers to offer first-trimester abortions without restriction. Outside of the capital city, abortion is permitted only in particular cases, such as rape or to save the life of the mother, as determined by state. Mexico City’s law is one of the most liberal in Latin America.
Abortion rates have little to do with the legal status of abortion, according to evidence from the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization. In 2003, abortion rates were roughly equal in developed regions (26 abortions for every 1,000 women of childbearing age) and developing regions (29 abortions per 1,000 women), despite abortion being largely illegal in developing regions.
Health consequences, however, vary greatly depending on the legal status of the procedure: Abortion is generally safe where it is broadly legal and mostly unsafe where restricted. Legalizing abortion is a necessary, but not sufficient, first step for making abortion safer; the procedure must also be performed by trained providers at appropriate facilities.
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Declining abortion rates worldwide
Putting worldwide abortion into context
The facts on abortion worldwide
State Legislative Trends at Midyear 2008
Through the first half of the year, there has only been moderate activity around reproductive health issues in state legislatures. In this as in other election years, legislators have been reluctant to address potentially divisive social issues; furthermore, the economic downturn has required legislators to focus on state budgetary issues. With most legislatures already adjourned, it appears that the most significant developments of the year still lie ahead, in the form of ballot initiatives that will come before voters in three states in November. Advocates in two states (South Dakota and Colorado) have secured sufficient signatures to force a vote on measures that take different approaches toward the long-term goal of banning abortion. In California, meanwhile, the electorate will vote for the third time in four years on an initiative to require parental notification prior to a minor’s abortion.
The South Dakota measure would ban most abortions outright. This is the second attempt to ban abortion in South Dakota in the past two years. In 2006, voters defeated an initiative that would have prohibited abortion except in cases of life endangerment. In contrast, the measure before voters this year seeks to ban abortion except in cases of life endangerment, rape and incest and if “there is serious risk of a substantial and irreversible impairment of the functioning of a major bodily organ or system.” As was the case with the 2006 initiative, the purpose of this year’s attempt is to bring a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Abortion opponents in Colorado are taking a more indirect approach to the same long-term goal of banning abortion: A proposed amendment to the state constitution on the ballot this November would define a person throughout Colorado law as a “human being from the moment of fertilization.” By declaring that legal personhood begins at fertilization, the initiative could pave the way for banning common methods of birth control, including oral contraceptives, which may sometimes act postfertilization (although their primary mode of action is to block ovulation).
The third initiative related to reproductive health issues will be yet another attempt to secure approval for a measure to require parental notification when a teen in California seeks an abortion. Similar proposals were presented and soundly defeated in 2005 and 2006. Passage of the California measure would bring to 36 the number of states requiring parental involvement for minors seeking an abortion.
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Major state legislative actions so far this year
State legislation enacted in 2008
The status of state law and policy on key reproductive health and rights issues
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