The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a new study has revealed record drops in the rates of teenage pregnancies and abortion. According to the results, both abortion and teenage pregnancies have been steadily dropping since 1990.
Overall, the total number of abortions fell 24 percent to 1.22 million in 2004 from a historical high of 1.61 million in 1990. Teenage pregnancies also declined during the same period, accounting for only 12 percent of all pregnancies in 2004 – a drop from 15 percent fourteen years earlier.
Stephanie Ventura, the lead researcher of the study, noted that among the reasons for a decline in abortion rates and teenage pregnancies was the overall decline in total pregnancies and a new tendency among women “to postpone child bearing and delay the start of their families.”
Lower abortion rates reflect “a lot of different reasons: changes in access to abortion, changes in attitudes about having a baby and a decline in teenage pregnancies, which end in abortion in many cases,” she added, according to Bloomberg News.
