A new report from the Guttmacher Institute reported that the number and rate of U.S. abortions increased between 2017 and 2020 after a 30-year decline. According to the report, in 2017, 862,000 abortions were registered which surged by 8% in 2020 with 9,30,000 abortions. The latest governmental data showed that the abortion rate has increased from 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women between the age of 15 to 44 years in 2017 to 14.4 abortions per 1,00 women in 2020.

The governmental data also showed that the National abortion numbers reached the lowest point in 2017. After the 1973 ruling, landmark legislation legalizing abortion, the numbers rose by 1.5 million per year in the 1980s. Meanwhile, the numbers remained above 1 million throughout the early 2010s preceded by a declining trend in the 1990s. Medication-related abortions accounted for 54% of the total abortions in 2020 with the West (12%) and Midwest (10%), followed by 8% in the South and 2% in the Northeast regions of the US showing the largest increment.

However, the major concerning factor in the report was a 6% decline in births between 2017 and 2020. Though the report suggested that the new laws dubbing abortion “Non-essential” health care have helped in decreasing the abortion rates with a reported decline of 2% between 2019-2020 in Texas. Similarly, abortion cases in Missouri saw a drop in abortion numbers from 4,7210 in 2017 to 170 in 2020.

(Source: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/975677 )