Quick Hit: New Guttmacher Report Details U.S. Abortion Trends, Availability

This week, the Guttmacher Institute released a new report, “Abortion Incidence and Services in the United States, 2008," [PDF] which details rates of abortion around the country, the number of abortion providers, percentages of counties in each state with no providers (87% for the national overall), types of locations (clinic, hospital, or physician offices) where abortions are being performed, cost, accessibility, the number of providers offering medication abortions, and other data.



I haven't read the entire report yet, but from a quick review it seems to have a wealth of interesting data that may be of use to pro-choice advocates. Guttmacher's news release notes that they detected a leveling off in the trend of decreasing abortion rates, and an increase in the percentage of nonhospital abortions that were performed via medication. The full report also includes data from the contacted providers on how many of them, outside of hospitals, had experienced harassment (in person or online), picketing, or threats. Fifty-seven percent of these providers reported some form of harassment, with picketing being the most common; 3% of providers reported having received bomb threats, and the same percent also reported that protesters had posted pictures of patients on the internet.