This week, The New York Times ran an article titled “Who Gets Abortions in America?” where they claimed that women, transgender, and nonbinary people who get abortions do so to “be a better parent" to the kids they already have, and to pursue educational ambitions, among other reasons.
In the article, the Times incorporated several statistics from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute to exemplify the reasons behind American women having abortions, as well as the demographics they belong to, claiming that the “portrait of abortion in the United States has changed with society” and that it is not “uncommon.”
“[In] the reproductive lives of women (and transgender and nonbinary people who can become pregnant) across America, abortion is not uncommon. The latest estimate, from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights, found that 25 percent of women will have an abortion by the end of their childbearing years,” the article states.
“There isn’t one monolith demographic who get abortions,” Ushma Upadhyay, a professor with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco, said to the Times. “The same people who become pregnant and give birth are the same people who have abortions at different points in their lives.”
According to the Times, the typical abortion patient nowadays, “in addition to having children, is poor; is unmarried and in her late 20s; has some college education; and is very early in pregnancy.” The article noted that teen pregnancies and abortions have declined over the years.
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“Six in ten women who have abortions are already mothers, and half of them have two or more children,” the article claimed, citing the CDC. And, 58 percent of people getting abortions are having an abortion for the first time. Twenty-four percent have had one previous abortion.
“One of the main reasons people report wanting to have an abortion is so they can be a better parent to the kids they already have,” Upadhyay said to the Times.
On the topic of abortions and fetal viability, the Times noted that 43 percent of all abortions occur in the first six weeks of pregnancy, and 92 percent in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. But, in the states with available data, about 21,500 women (4 percent) have abortion procedures surpassing 13 weeks gestation.
The Times brushed this off, stating “the women who receive later abortions are more likely to be poor or young or to have serious health complications.” As I covered, 12 and 15 week bans on abortion are mainstream in Europe. The United States is one of only a handful of countries, including China and North Korea, that allows any sort of elective “late-term” abortion.
Broken down by their highest level of education, 41 percent of women seeking abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, have attended “some college.” More than one-fourth, 27 percent, are in high school, and 23 percent are college graduates.
“Increasingly, women say they are delaying having children until they can finish school, establish a career and support themselves,” the article stated. “For women who do not feel they have many educational or career opportunities, early parenthood is often embraced as a primary route to fulfillment, social science research has found.”
Broken down by relationship status, 46 percent of those who have abortions are single and have never been married. Thirty-one percent, the article notes, are “cohabiting” with a significant other, but are not married. Fourteen percent are married, and 9 percent are single but previously married.
“The states with the highest share of women who obtained abortions in 2019 were Democratic-leaning,” the article states. “That may reflect differences in abortion access, and the cultural acceptance of abortion in some regions.”
The Times’ article came in response to the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case surrounds a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi and could overturn landmark case Roe v. Wade, which gave American women the right to abortion.
The Court’s decision in the case is expected next summer. But, following the oral arguments which occurred Dec. 1, reports indicated that the conservative-majority Supreme Court would be open to upholding the Mississippi law and possibly overturning Roe.
“Around 33 percent of abortions are performed in the 22 states that would be likely to ban abortion if Roe were overturned. There would be fewer abortions in those states post-Roe. But some of those women would travel out of state, and some would end their pregnancies using extralegal means,” the Times concluded.
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