Post Date:
June 11, 2020 Issue Date:
June 27, 2020

A staggering abortion toll

Name: WORLD
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Illustration by Krieg Barrie

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61,628,584

The total number of abortions in the United States between 1973—when the U.S. Supreme Court forced states to legalize abortion—and 2017, according to a calculation by National Right to Life using data from the Guttmacher Institute. While the number of abortions per year has been dropping fairly steadily since peaking at over 1.6 million in 1990, the death toll still reaches several hundred thousand every year. National Right to Life noted that the share of chemical abortions rose from 16.4 percent of all abortions in 2008 to 39.4 percent in 2017.

1,608,600

The number of reported abortions in the United States in 1990, according to National Right to Life (using data from the Guttmacher Institute). That year saw the highest number of abortions since the 1973 Roe decision. The number of abortions had been 744,610 in 1973.

1,312,990

The number of reported abortions in the United States in 2000.

1,102,670

The number of reported abortions in the United States in 2010.

899,500

The number of reported abortions in the United States in 2015.

862,320

The number of reported abortions in the United States in 2017, a decline of almost 50 percent since 1990.