Both the Guttmacher Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regularly report abortion statistics in the United States. They use different methodologies, so they report somewhat different abortion rates, but they show similar trends. The Guttmacher Institute attempts to contact every abortion provider. The CDC relies on voluntary reporting of abortion data from the states and the District of Columbia. As of July 2022, the Guttmacher Institute had reported abortion data for the years 1973 through 2020 and the CDC had reported abortion data for the years 1970 through 2019.

Abortion statistics are commonly presented as the number of abortions, the abortion rate (the number of abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44), and the abortion ratio. The Guttmacher Institute defines the abortion ratio as the number of abortions per 100 pregnancies ending in an abortion or a live birth, excluding miscarriages, and the CDC defines it as the number of abortions per 1,000 live births.

The figures reported by both organizations include only the legal induced abortions conducted by clinics, hospitals or physicians' offices, or that make use of abortion pills dispensed from certified facilities such as clinics or physicians' offices. They do not account for the use of abortion pills that were obtained outside of clinical settings.

For 2020, Guttmacher reported 930,160 abortions, an abortion rate of 14.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years, and 20.6 abortions per 100 pregnancies. For 2025, Guttmacher reported 1,126,000 abortions, and an abortion rate of 16.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years, a 16% increase from 2020.

Trends in abortion statistics In 1973, the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion in all 50 states. From 1973 to 1980, the abortion rate rose almost 80%, peaking at 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age in 1980 and 1981.

From 1981 through 2017, the abortion rate fell by more than half, falling faster in Democratic administrations than Republican ones. The abortion rate fell below the 1973 rate in 2012 and continued to fall through 2017, when it stood at 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age. The abortion rate then rose from 2018 through 2020.

During the 1980s, the population of women of childbearing age grew faster than the abortion rate fell, so the annual number of abortions performed did not peak until 1990, at about 1.6 million abortions. The number of abortions generally fell from 1991 through 2017, and rose thereafter. The largest percentage decrease in the number of abortions occurred in 2013, the year the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act took effect for most health insurance plans. Approximately 860,000 abortions were performed in 2017, rising to about 930,000 in 2020.

From 1973 to 1983, the abortion ratio reported by the Guttmacher Institute rose about 60%, peaking at 30.4 in 1983. From 1984 through 2016, the abortion ratio fell about 40%. It hit a low of 18.3 in 2016 and rose to 20.6 in 2020. The abortion ratio was slightly lower in 2016 and 2017 than in 1973 because a 40% decrease more than offsets a 60% increase.

This summary is largely based on data collected by the Guttmacher Institute. Data collected by the CDC shows similar trends, but the CDC consistently finds fewer abortions.

There has been a dramatic drop in abortion rates in the US over the last few decades. Since rates peaked in 1981, the incidence and rate of abortion have shown a significant long-term decline. In recent years, these declines have been relatively consistent across most geographic regions and have occurred for all groups. In 2022, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision overturned Roe v. Wade. The effect of Dobbs on the abortion rate will not be known for several years.

Abortion data for the four most recent years reported by the Guttmacher Institute appears below. The abortion ratio is the number of abortions per 100 pregnancies ending in an abortion or a live birth. From 2017 through 2020, the abortion rate rose 6.7%.

+ Guttmacher Institute data year number of abortions abortion rate abortion ratio 2016 874,100 13.7 18.3 2017 862,300 13.5 18.4 2019 916,460 14.2 not yet reported 2020 930,160 14.4 20.6

Abortion data for the ten most recent years reported by the CDC appears below. The data comes from 47 states, excluding California, Maryland, New Hampshire, and the District of Columbia. The abortion ratio is the number of abortions per 1,000 live births. In 2018 and 2019, for the first time since 1979 and 1980, the abortion rate rose two years in a row.

+ CDC data year number of abortions abortion rate abortion ratio 2010 762,755 14.6 228 2011 727,554 13.9 219 2012 696,587 13.2 210 2013 661,874 12.5 200 2014 649,849 12.1 186 2015 636,902 11.8 188 2016 623,471 11.6 186 2017 609,095 11.2 185 2018 614,820 11.3 189 2019 625,346 11.4 195

Independent clinics provide about 60% of abortions in the United States while Planned Parenthood provides about 35% of abortions in the United States.

Guttmacher Institute estimates The abortion rights research and policy organization Guttmacher Institute estimates the number of abortions in the United States by surveying abortion providers. Every third year they attempt to contact every abortion provider. They ask for data for the two most recent years, and they estimate abortion statistics for the missing year by interpolation.

For 2020, the Guttmacher Institute reported 930,160 abortions, an abortion rate of 14.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years, and 20.6 abortions per 100 pregnancies.

The means in the graph above are geometric means. For example, the mean annual increase during the Carter administration was 4.9%, because the abortion rate rose 21.1% in the Carter administration, and 104.9%*104.9%*104.9%*104.9%=121.1%. Medication abortions For the first time in 2020, medication abortions, as reported by Guttmacher, accounted for more than 50% of all abortions.

CDC surveillance reports The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began abortion surveillance reports in 1969 to document the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions. The CDC aggregates the information that the states and the District of Columbia collect to produce annual national estimates. Because New York City and the rest of New York State report separately, there are a total of 52 reporting areas.

The CDC always finds a lower abortion rate than the Guttmacher Institute. For 2019, the CDC reported 11.4 abortions and the Guttmacher Institute reported 14.2 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

Here are some of the reasons the CDC's data is incomplete: States are not required to report abortion data to the CDC, and different states fail to report in different years. For 2019, California, Maryland, and New Hampshire failed to report abortion data. In particular, the lack of data from California, a populous state with a high abortion rate, reduces the reported overall abortion rate. New Jersey does not require abortion providers to report abortions to a governmental health agency. Among states that require abortion providers to report abortions, compliance varies.

This Wikipedia article take CDC data for 1970-1997 from this source. This Wikipedia article take CDC data for 1997-2006 from this source. This Wikipedia article take CDC data for 2006-2015 from this source. This Wikipedia article take CDC data for 2015-2019 from this source

To estimate the percentage change in the abortion rate from one year to the next most accurately, we must compare data from the same group of states in both years. Unfortunately, different states report their data to the CDC in different years. The black, blue, green, and purple pieces of the graph allow us to make accurate apples-to-apples comparisons. Each differently colored piece shows data from a different group of states. For example, the blue piece shows data from 46 reporting areas that reported continuously from 1997 through 2006. To estimate the change in the abortion rate from 1996 to 1998, we use the black part of the graph for 1997 and the blue part for 1998. The black part shows a 4.8% decrease in 1997, and the blue part shows a 2.3% decrease in 1998. The gap between the black and blue sections in 1997 occurs because data from California, a populous state with high abortion rates, was not available after 1997.

During 1996, the total number of legal induced abortions were available for all 52 reporting areas. However, approximately 31% of abortions were reported from states that, in 1996, did not have centralized reporting of abortions (four states) or from states whose state health departments did not collect, and therefore could not provide, information about characteristics (e.g., age or race) of women obtaining legal abortions (two states).

Demographic statistics

Prevalence In 2017, Guttmacher reported that almost 25% of women will have had an abortion by age 45, with 4.6% of 20-year-olds and 19% of 30-year-olds having had at least one. More than six million women in the United States, or 11 percent of women of reproductive age, become pregnant each year. More than half of these pregnancies, or approximately 3.4 million, are unintended, and 1.6 million of the unintended pregnancies are terminated through abortion.

Ethnicity Race does not appear to have significant impact on the matter of support for abortion.

Abortion rates tend to be higher among minority women in the U.S. In 2000–2001 the rates among black and Hispanic women were 49 per 1,000 and 33 per 1,000, respectively, vs. 13 per 1,000 among non-Hispanic white women. Note that this figure includes all women of reproductive age, including women who are not pregnant. In other words, these abortion rates reflect the rate at which U.S. women of reproductive age have an abortion each year.

In 2024, the abortion rate for black women was nearly three times higher than for white women, while for Hispanic women, it was nearly two times higher than the rate for white women. "Looking at abortion rates among those ages 15 to 44, there were 28.6 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic Black women in 2021; 12.3 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women; 6.4 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic White women; and 9.2 abortions per 1,000 women of other races, the CDC reported from those same 31 states, D.C. and New York City."

+ Abortion rate per 1,000 women, 2021 Ethnicity Abortion rate African American women 28.6 Hispanic women 12.3 Other women 9.2 White women 6.4

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