For Immediate Release: April 9, 2014
Contact: James R. Harden, M.Div. President/CEO, CompassCare
(585) 820-7229 | jim.harden@compasscare.info
www.compasscare.info | facebook.com/compasscarecommunity | Twitter @compasscare
New York State Abortion Rate Lowest Since Legalization in 1970
Rochester, NY—On April 7 New York State published its Vital Statistics for 2012. The data reveals that the number of abortions statewide hit an all-time low since abortion was legalized in 1970. In the last five years alone (between 2008 and 2012) the number of abortions dropped 18%.
Leading the way in the decline are Nassau County on Long Island with a 49% reduction, Westchester County north of NYC with a 40% reduction and Rochester and Monroe County in Upstate with 34%. “Actually, while Monroe County has seen the abortion numbers drop by more than a third it is also the only County of the ‘biggest losers’ with a consistent annual reduction over the last five years,” said Jim Harden, President of CompassCare. Harden claims that his agency was responsible for serving 42% of the total number of women making up the difference of the abortion decline in Monroe County from 2008-2012.
New York State has been labeled the abortion capital of the United Sates with more abortions occurring per capita than any other State. New York City, then, would be the epicenter of the abortion capital. Yet even there the abortion rate has declined 3% from 38% to 35%.
New York State is one of the few States in the Union that actually require abortion reporting and this recent round of data seems to underscore the national abortion reduction trend of 13% between 2008 and 2011 according to a recent Guttmacher study. Abortion advocates claim that the reason for the reduction is increased effective use of contraception across the population.
Regarding the contraception claim Jim Harden notes, “Abortion is obviously connected to pregnancy. Therefore it would stand to reason that if there is increased effective use of contraception across the population one would expect that the overall pregnancy rate would be declining at the same rate as abortion. But that is not what is happening, at least in NY.”
In fact the 2012 data shows that the abortion rate declined 4.7 times faster than the pregnancy rate since 2008. Harden went on to say that the inverse also does not appear to be true: “The only place where the pregnancy rate went up significantly was Albany. There the abortion rate jumped 13 times faster than the pregnancy rate. This translates into 96% of all additional pregnancies ending in abortion. It is a ghoulish outlier. When there is virtually a 1:1 pregnancy to abortion ratio something, somewhere is profoundly broken.”
Is it purely coincidence that this alarming outlier is happening in and around NY’s capital, which has been pushing for absolute abortion deregulation via the Women’s Equality Act? National abortion foes claim that the 13% decline is directly related to increased State level regulation. Yet despite New York’s aversion to regulating abortionists the rates continue to drop all the same. Why then is the abortion trend reversing if both the reasons the pro-lifers and pro-aborts use are not backed up by the data? Harden said, “A cultural shift away from abortion as an accepted norm has begun.”