Guttmacher Claims Abortions are Increasing Nationally, But It Changed How it Gets Abortion Data

Just days after National Right to Life released a report that says available data has emerged showing abortions have been declining in the US since then DobbsThe Guttmacher Institute, the former special research affiliate of abortion giant Planned Parenthood, sent out a press release saying new data shows abortions on the rise.

Guttmacher said new monthly numbers from select abortion “providers” indicate that the “Number of Abortions in the United States Likely to be Higher in 2023 than in 2020”.

The abortion industry is clearly eager to try to make the case that pro-life policies have not been proven effective. They also want these people to believe that, through clever legal and logistical maneuvering, they have been able to defeat or prevent the impact of pro-life laws and keep the abortion industry humming.

Their publication of these preliminary numbers is proof that the industry is not backing down. But is this evidence of an increase?

Guttmacher weighs in

According to figures compiled by Guttmacher from clinics reporting to them, there were an estimated 878,200 abortions performed in the US in the first ten months (January-October) of 2023. With that data currently showing an average of over -about 88,000 a month, Guttmacher projects that the projected year-end total for 2023 will surpass the 930,160 reported in its most recent full survey in 2020. Do the math and you get about 1,050,000 for year

Another method

For the longest time, Guttmacher was considered to have the most accurate abortion numbers, relying on direct surveys of abortion clinics, rather than reports from state health departments, as the CDC does. There is a tendency to assume the same level of accuracy here, but their methods in this most recent study differ from those employed in its full national survey every three years.

While its regular survey attempts to obtain data from each national abortion “provider,” contacting them as many times as necessary, the monthly data used here come from “samples of abortion provider” combined with “historical data” on past caseloads from earlier surveys to produce general estimates for known “providers.”

Click Like if you’re pro-life to like the LifeNews Facebook page!

The monthly survey sample includes some random “providers” as well as “[F]facilities that play a particularly important or unique role in the provision (eg, because they border a state with an abortion ban or because they provide a significant portion of abortions in the state).”

Guttmacher does not directly address the question of whether this method might oversample “providers” who are likely to be recruited from state traffic or referrals after Dobbs and have the consequence of making the expected average caseload higher than it should be for all other unsampled clinics. Guttmacher includes wide “uncertainty intervals” for their estimates to show a range where they think the most accurate estimate lies.

Guttmacher does not seem to count abortions from states where full protection for the unborn is in place. But one wonders whether Guttmacher’s statistical model can still assign caseloads to clinics in other states that have since closed or become dormant (as far as abortion goes). Dobbs.

If abortion is up, why?

Although their accuracy at this point is difficult to ascertain, Guttmacher’s report raises the possibility that abortion numbers may have continued at their pre-Dobbs increase after Dobbsdespite that very important decision.

If that did happen, or even if we just want to know why the reversal of the Roe did not automatically shut down the abortion industry altogether, there are several important reasons that may have occurred.

Employees of the old clinic as travel agents

The industry has made no secret of the fact that they have invested a lot of money and effort in setting up extensive and expensive referral systems. It’s one where they make arrangements for vulnerable pregnant women from states that have legal protections for unborn children to travel to nearby clinics or other states that do. pro-abortion policy. Tmay run out of money at some point, but early on, private abortion funds pay for or at least supplement that travel or even help to cover abortion costs.

This certainly contributed to any “abortion migration” from one state to another, but it also meant a large number of women who had abortions could have stayed in their home state and had their babies. That not only perpetuates abortion but may have the effect of encouraging some women to have abortions who would otherwise not have the money or inclination to do so.

The abortion industry has been preparing for years to handle higher volumes from out-of-state clients, building high-volume mega-clinics just across state lines, and setting up mobile clinic to patrol the borders at state borders.

Chemical abortions without clinics

Guttmacher also points to the role of chemical abortions, especially those performed remotely via telemedicine.

When these pills had to be distributed in clinics, they still attracted large numbers of women looking for an alternative to surgical abortion. But when the courts and the Biden administration made changes that allowed them to be delivered by mail to women’s homes without any in-person visits, it made these dangerous abortions readily available to women who live away from any brick and mortar clinics. .

That also helped with the abortion.

Marketing crisis

Data from the same Family Planning Society and Guttmacher shows that there was a significant increase in the number of abortions recorded by the clinics they contacted in March of 2023. This was precisely when there was heavy national media coverage of the case in the North Texas federal district court that challenged the approval of the government on the abortion pill mifepristone.

Clearly, fears that the drug was about to be taken off the market prompted a lot of “panic buying.” Although the government largely lost that case, the drug remained on the market pending review of that decision by higher courts.

The bottom line? Lives were saved.

The combination of all these efforts and spending by the abortion industry may keep abortion on the rise in the United States, despite new legal protections in place for women and children in many states because of Dobbs. We’ll have to wait and see what the numbers are when more complete data comes out from Guttmacher and the abortion industry.

Whatever the final numbers turn out to be, it’s clear that some women have traveled and had abortions in other states, and some have ordered abortion pills over the internet. The abortion industry prepared for this and helped make it happen.

But we also know from statistics and from many news reports that many women from those states with protections, who would otherwise visit their (now closed or dormant) neighborhood abortion clinic, are decided to stay home and have their babies.

The other side will continue to scare women into buying dangerous pills online and will continue to try to send women to other states. But it’s unclear what they’ll do when they run out of free travel money or if the Supreme Court (or the exposure of a bad safety record) preventing the shipment of abortion pills.

In the end, we must believe that the fight will be won not by those with the most money or with the most influence in the media, but by those who show in word and deed their love for mother and child.

They are the ones that really count for everything.

LifeNews.com Note: Randall O’Bannon, Ph.D., is the director of education and research for theNational Right to Life Committee.