The last few weeks as I have been leaving my local Loblaws I have seen ads all over talking about Click & Collect. I don't know what this is, but in my usual apathetic fashion I ignore it and move on with my life. The last time I went grocery shopping I see a video while I'm waiting in line - my interest is piqued. "Can it really be that easy?" I ask myself with a moderate amount of glee. I love these sorts of "innovations" - shopping online is great - it's easy, comfortable, gives me time to think, and, best of all, I don't have to deal with random people (no offense random people, I'm sure you're very nice!). The website is set up a bit like Netflix with horizontal scrolling food options. Each "aisle" has its own page with categories within the aisle shown. Only a subset of each category is shown and you can delve deeper to see all the possibilities. You can also search for specific items instead of clicking th
I saw a post about abortion recently, specifically relating to Planned Parenthood, and I decided to do some digging.
Basic Info:
The basic stats in the United States are staggering:
Looking at the numbers in Canada (where I live) it turns out that they are very similar to the United States; in 2011 there were 92,524 abortions performed [4] and around 380,000 births [5], so
References:
[1] - Guttmacher Institute - https://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/abortion-US/statsandfacts.html
[2] - CDC - http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/
[3] - Planned Parenthood 2012 Factsheet - https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/7413/9620/1089/AR-FY13_111213_vF_rev3_ISSUU.pdf
[4] - Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) 2011 Fact Sheet - https://www.cihi.ca/en/ta_11_alldatatables20130221_en.pdf
[5] - Statistics Canada Birth Estimates - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo04a-eng.htm
[6] - Guttmacher - Reasons US Women Have Abortions (2005) - https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf
[7] - Understanding why women seek abortions in the US (2013) - www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6874-13-29.pdf
Basic Info:
The basic stats in the United States are staggering:
- 50% of pregnancies are unplanned [1]
- 40% of unplanned pregnancies result in abortion [1]
- which means: 20% of all pregnancies result in abortion [1]
- In terms of absolute values - ~730,000 [2] or ~1 million [1] abortions were performed in 2011 depending on the reporting source
- Nearly 30% of women in the US will have had an abortion by the time they are 45 [1]
Looking at the numbers in Canada (where I live) it turns out that they are very similar to the United States; in 2011 there were 92,524 abortions performed [4] and around 380,000 births [5], so
- ~20% of pregnancies in Canada result in abortion
I stopped digging for Canadian data as US data is more easily obtained and Canada and the US are likely similar enough for a general overview.
Reasons to Obtain an Abortion:
Looking through many articles (e.g., [6, 7]) it seems that the majority of the reasons to obtain an abortion relate to lack of readiness to have a child, financial hardship, relationships (e.g., not in a relationship or relationship uncertainty), or wanting to focus on other children. A relatively small number of abortions are performed as a result of maternal health (3%) or rape / incest (1%) . Most individuals reported multiple reasons.
Thoughts:
Firstly, I have to say that the numbers really took me by surprise. I am unsure why, but I assumed that abortion was much less prevalent than it is in actuality. I suppose that is the reason I wrote this in the first place; it forces me to look up information and also helps spread that information to the 2 people that will read this.
Regardless of whether you are pro-life or pro-choice I assume that avoiding an unwanted pregnancy in the first place is the best way to go. That isn't to say that contraceptives don't fail and things don't happen, but 20% of all pregnancies seems too high for the "oops" factor.
I'm not sure what the way forward is at this point; I haven't had time yet to read about sex education, male contraception, etc, in order to form an opinion. Perhaps in a future post!
The links below are much more in-depth. Some articles break down the numbers by socio-economic status, ethnicity, geographic location, etc. These numbers are also very interesting and deserving of their own post.
References:
[1] - Guttmacher Institute - https://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/abortion-US/statsandfacts.html
[2] - CDC - http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/
[3] - Planned Parenthood 2012 Factsheet - https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/7413/9620/1089/AR-FY13_111213_vF_rev3_ISSUU.pdf
[4] - Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) 2011 Fact Sheet - https://www.cihi.ca/en/ta_11_alldatatables20130221_en.pdf
[5] - Statistics Canada Birth Estimates - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo04a-eng.htm
[6] - Guttmacher - Reasons US Women Have Abortions (2005) - https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf
[7] - Understanding why women seek abortions in the US (2013) - www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6874-13-29.pdf
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