Who Gets Abortions And Why? 20 Facts About Terminating Pregnancies

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will be considering a challenge to a controversial 2013 Texas bill that restrict about 75 percent of existing abortion clinics. The laws implications are particularly important to Texas’ 40 percent of women who are Hispanic and are twice as likely to have unplanned pregnancies. The announcement follows a May 2015 proposal by the House to ban most pregnancies after 20 weeks . That proposal, eventually voted down in the Senate , inspired us to write the article, reproduced below. We’d also recommends an article from Fusion about who gets abortions after 20 weeks (in a nutshell, they’re unplanned pregnancies often linked to the mother’s health or fetal defects). Below is the original article.

Unless otherwise noted by links, these abortion facts come from various publications of the Guttmacher institute.

First off, who is for and against abortion?

(1) The number of people who identify as pro-life versus pro-choices has been virtually the same since the mid 1990s, according to Gallup polling that goes back to the 1980s. The country is locked in a perpetual 50/50 debate over the legality of abortion.

(2) People who oppose abortion rights are more often men and older women; people who aren’t likely to need an abortion any time soon.

(3) People who support the right to terminate pregnancy are more likely to be young and female.

(4) Yet despite being more likely to abort a pregnancy, minority opposition to abortion is higher in polls.

(5) Legislators don’t have a chance of outlawing abortion any time soon. After Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that affirmed a woman’s right to medical privacy. However, more recent cases have opened up the possibility for states to restrict abortions, especially after the fetus can live outside the womb, a legal standard called “viability.”

Who Is More Likely To Get An Abortion?

(6) 90 percent terminate their pregnancy within 12 weeks of their first missed menstrual cycle.

(7) 58 percent are in their twenties

(8) 61 percent already have children

(9) 56 percent are unmarried and don’t live with their partner

(10) Pregnant doesn’t mean promiscuous: among never-married women obtaining abortions, (11) almost one-half have been in a relationship for a year or longer with the man who had made them pregnant.

(12) 73 percent say they are affiliated with a church or some religion

(13) 37 percent are Protestant, 28 percent are Catholic

(14) Latinas are twice as likely as whites to have an abortion.

(15) Black women are almost five times as likely.

(16) Three in ten women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

Why Would Someone Get An Abortion?

The top two reasons why women decide to have an abortion are because having the child would (17) interfere with her ability to work or care for dependants -- 74 percent -- and because they (18) cannot afford to provide for the child -- 73 percent. (19) Around one third specifically cite the need to focus on children they already have. (20) Relationship problems are a main factor in 48 percent of decisions to abort. You'll notice that the reasons don't add up to 100 percent; that's because it's usually more than one factor.