More American women are having babies they didn’t want, a survey indicates, but federal researchers say they don’t know if that means attitudes about abortion are changing.
U.S. women of childbearing age who were surveyed in 2002 revealed that 14 percent of their recent births were unwanted at the time of conception, federal researchers said Monday.
In a similar 1995 survey, only 9 percent were unwanted at the time of conception.
At least one anti-abortion group said the numbers reflect a national “pro-life shift,” while others who research reproductive health issues suggested it might mean less access to abortion.
The latest findings are consistent with the falling rate of abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based nonprofit group that researches reproductive health issues.
The number of U.S. abortion providers fell steadily in the last decade, from 2,400 in 1992 to 1,800 in 2000. The reason is not clearly known, although increasing government restrictions of abortions have made it increasingly difficult to provide the procedure, Finer said.
The new data on unwanted pregnancies was released by the National Center for Health Statistics, which surveyed 7,643 U.S. women on that and many other family planning and reproductive health questions in 2002 and early 2003. The surveyed women were between the ages of 15 and 44.
AP
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