SC abortions rose in 2020 as part of U.S. trend reversing a 30-year decline. Here’s by how much
More patients sought abortions in South Carolina in 2020 than they did three years earlier, part of nationwide trend that reversed a 30-year decline in the procedure.
The findings were included in a report from the Guttmacher Institute that was released on Wednesday. The report comes as the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, which guarantees abortion rights.
According to the report, the number of abortions in South Carolina rose to 5,300 in 2020, a 4% increase from 2017, the last time such data was collected.
Previous data released by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control included a breakdown by age group of the patients who had abortions in 2020 in the state. Those are as follows:
South Carolina abortions by age group
2020
- Under 15: 0.3%
- 15-16: 1.1%
- 17-19: 8%
- 20-24: 28.5%
- 25-29: 29.1%
- 30-34: 19.2%
- 35 and over: 14%
Overall, the total number of U.S. abortions rose to 930,160 in 2020, an 8% increase, the Guttmacher report shows.
Other notable nationwide trends from the 2020 data includes:
- The abortion rate increased from 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in 2017 to 14.4 per 1,000 women, a 7% increase.
- In 2020, about one in five pregnancies ended in abortion. Specifically, the abortion ratio (the number of abortions per 100 pregnancies) increased from 18.4% in 2017 to 20.6% in 2020, a 12% increase.
- The increase in abortion was accompanied by a 6% decline in births between 2017 and 2020. Because there were many more births (3.6 million) than abortions (930,000) in 2020, these patterns mean that fewer people were getting pregnant and, among those who did, a larger proportion chose to have an abortion.
- The number of abortions increased in all four regions of the country between 2017 and 2020. The rise was largest in the West (12% increase) and Midwest (10% increase); abortions increased 8% in the South and 2% in the Northeast.
The report also lists potential reasons that may have contributed to the increase in abortions, including:
- Some states expanded Medicaid coverage of abortion care. The majority of people who obtain an abortion are poor or low income, and this coverage meant that many who would not otherwise have been able to afford an abortion could get care.
- The Trump-Pence administration’s “domestic gag rule” dramatically slashed the Title X family planning network’s capacity and severely reduced the number of contraceptive clients served by the program. As such, many people in some states lost access to low- or no-cost contraceptive care.
- Local and national abortion funds increased their capacity and helped even more people pay for their abortions.
- The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted health care systems across the United States. Some states attempted to ban abortion access early in the pandemic. Abortion access was also disrupted in some states supportive of abortion rights because health care providers were dealing with outbreaks of COVID-19 among their families and communities. Still other states were able to maintain steady access to abortion care, including for people from states where it was not accessible due to the pandemic.
- Between 2017 and 2020, 25 states enacted 168 abortion restrictions and bans, but not all of them went into effect because of legal challenges. In addition, many of these new restrictions were enacted in states where clinics had already been operating in hostile environments, so their practical effect likely was reduced.
- During this time period, 75 provisions to protect abortion rights were enacted. Half of these measures repealed pre-Roe bans or other restrictions. Among the other half, many expanded access by requiring Medicaid or private health plans to cover abortion, or allowing qualified clinicians such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants or certified nurse midwives to provide at least some abortion care.
- Because restrictions were adopted in states generally considered hostile to abortion rights already, they may not have played as much of a role as the measures expanding access, particularly policies that help people pay for abortion care.
This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 11:21 AM with the headline "SC abortions rose in 2020 as part of U.S. trend reversing a 30-year decline. Here’s by how much."
