Today the Family Research Council released a new paper looking at the “Demographics of Women Who Report Having an Abortion.” 

The press release has some (but not all) of the highlights:

Among the MARRI paper’s significant findings on women who reported having an abortion:

* The majority of those who abort have one abortion only: Whereas about five percent of ever-pregnant women report having two or more abortions, 15 percent report having one.

* Abortion occurs most widely among younger women: Among women who report having had one or more abortions, nearly half are 20 years old or younger, and three-quarters are 24 or younger.

* Women with multiple sexual and cohabiting partners have a markedly higher abortion rate: Nearly 90 percent of women who report one or more abortions have had three or more male sexual partners.

* Almost 60 percent of women who report one or more abortions have cohabited with two or more men.

* Abortion rate is lower among women from biologically intact or intact, adoptive families: Whereas about 26 percent of women from broken families report some abortion history, only 16 percent of women from biologically intact families or intact, adoptive families report abortion history.

* No marked difference in abortion rates across income categories, no clear relationship detectible between abortion rates and education: Abortion rates do not vary markedly among women of the different income categories assessed in this report.

* No clear relationship or pattern is detectible between abortion rates and women of particular educational attainment levels.

To read the paper, click here: http://marri.us/abortion-demographics

The study found that while abortion rates don’t vary much between income levels with race it is a different.  African American women have the highest abortion rate, finding that 27.8 percent of African American women who have been pregnant have had an abortion (compared to 15 percent of Hispanic women and 19.9 percent of white non-Hispanic women.) 

FRC is not the only organization looking at some of the numbers going around the abortion issue. 

This week Americans United for Life released its annual ranking of states by their anti-abortion laws. Louisiana tops the list with the strictest abortion laws, followed by Oklahoma, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Texas. Washington state ranked on the other end of the list, with the most-lenient laws, followed by California, Vermont, New York and Connecticut. The pro-abortion group National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) tried to horn in on the action by releasing their own scorecard.  California, who basically passed a law allowing for your plumber to do an abortion, ranks first on their list. 

The top 10 states on AUL’s annual ranking received F’s on NARAL’s report card while states at the bottom of AUL’s list received an A+, A or A- from NARAL.

Considering most of the numbers on abortions are controlled by the very people who profit from them I am glad that groups like FRC and AUL are taking a closer look at the industry.