Abortion numbers

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The most comprehensive study in years of abortion in America underscores a striking change in the landscape, with ever-fewer pregnant women choosing abortion and those who do increasingly opting to avoid surgical clinics.

The number of abortions has plunged to 1.2 million a year, down 25 percent since hitting a peak in 1990, according to a report being released today — days before the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

The abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level since 1974, the first full year after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the procedure nationwide.

The annual rate has been falling steadily since 1981, paralleling a sharp decline in the number of abortion providers.

In the early 1980s, nearly one in three pregnant women chose abortion. The most recent data show that proportion is closer to one in five.

"That's a significant drop, and it's encouraging," said Randall O'Bannon, director of education and research for the anti-abortion group National Right to Life.

Women looking to end pregnancy in its early stage are gravitating to pharmaceutical abortion, in which they take two pills under a doctor's supervision to induce miscarriage. This approach lets them avoid surgery — and the protesters who often picket clinics — and expel the embryo in the privacy of their homes. The Food and Drug Administration approved the pills in 2000 for use through the seventh week of pregnancy.

By 2005, the most recent year covered by the report, the pills accounted for 13 percent of all abortions.

The research was conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based nonprofit that focuses on reproductive matters. The institute supports abortion rights and has received funding in the past from Planned Parenthood. Abortion opponents, however, generally view its statistics as reliable.

The Guttmacher report came to no conclusions about why the abortion landscape has changed. But that didn't stop activists on both sides from speculating.

Abortion-rights advocates suggested that women may not be terminating as often because they're avoiding unwanted pregnancies, thanks in part to emergency contraception, known as the morning-after pill, which is sold without a prescription to women 18 and older.

Opponents of abortion contend that the more women learn about the procedure, the less likely they are to choose it. The falling abortion rate, they say, may be the result of laws mandating counseling before an abortion.

In addition to the data on abortion rates, the Guttmacher report offered the first comprehensive census of abortion providers since 2000.

The number of abortion clinics nationwide was down 15 percent, a net loss of four dozen surgical clinics. But other women's health centers — and doctors in private practice — filled the gap by offering medical abortions.