Planned Parenthood's contribution to Respect Life Week: some good news
The PP-funded research organization, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, has announced that abortion rates are down in the U.S. The report contains some bad and some good news for pro-life advocates; here's the good part:
The study also showed a steep drop — nearly 40 percent — in the abortion rate for women 15 to 17 years old. It fell from 24 per 1,000 young women in 1994 to just 15 in 2000.An encouraging fact indeed. As you might expect, the speculation about its cause is a mixed bag:
Those figures do not necessarily mean more teens are carrying pregnancies to term. Other key indicators of teenage sexual activity — including teen pregnancy and births to teen mothers — also fell steadily in the late 1990s.Analysts have credited a broad set of factors for those trends, including fears of HIV and AIDS and a booming economy that may have led young people to put off raising families in favor of high-paying jobs.
