The abortion rate and the number of abortions has fallen 13%, with just 1.1 million abortions in 2011, according to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute.
Just 16.9 per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 got an abortion in 2011.
It’s the lowest rate since the year the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide, 1973. Guttmacher has been periodically surveying abortion providers since the 1970s and surveyed four years for the current study, looking at abortion from 2008 to 2011.
But the study’s authors say it’s not because of the hundreds of restrictive laws states have implemented in recent years.
“While most of the new laws were enacted in states in the Midwest and the South, abortion incidence declined in all regions,” the study said, adding that in states that support abortion, the rate was also down—or even greater—than the national decline.
They did note that the regulations did not increase the number.
“Some of the new regulations undoubtedly made it more difficult, and costly, for facilities to continue to provide services and for women to access them,” the study’s authors conceded.
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