Abortion rate falls to new low
The U.S. abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, according to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute. The 1.1 million abortions performed in 2011 represented a rate of 16.9 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, continuing a decline from a peak of 29.3 in 1980. The institute’s researchers attributed most of the decline to more widespread use of birth control methods such as the pill and the IUD.
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