The Nation : Abortion Rate Declining

More American women than ever before are getting legal abortions, but the rate of increase is declining, a federal survey showed. The survey, conducted by the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, showed that 1,300,760 abortions were reported to state health departments in 1981, the latest year for which statistics were available, compared to 1,297,606 for the previous year. The number of reported abortions “was probably lower than the number actually performed,” the agency said. But “the national abortion rate decreased from 25 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 1980 to 24 per 1,000 in 1981,” the CDC reported. The abortion rate for unmarried women is 14 times higher than that for married women, it said.