New York, Gov Cuomo and Abortion

 

Number of abortions and abortion rate drops in New York City, nation’s “Abortion Capital”

By Dave Andrusko

The number of abortions and the abortion rate fell in New York City, perhaps in part because of controversy stirred by proposals made by pro-abortion Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

A year ago, NRL News Today posted a story that began, “Discernible progress is being made in New York City on the ratio of abortions to live births just released 2011 City data shows.”

“While the city remained the abortion capital of America in 2011, with abortion ratios almost twice the national average, citywide the abortion ratio (the percentage of pregnancies ending in an abortion) fell below 40% (39.55%) for the first time since 1970, when abortion was legalized in New York.”

The number of abortions dropped to 80,485, still grotesquely high but dropping.
A blip or confirmation of a trend?

Last week, the New York City Health Department reported tremendous progress on both scores for 2012. The number of abortions declined to 73,815 while the abortion rate dropped precipitously–from 42.2/1,000 women aged 15-49 in 2011 to 33.4./1,000 in 2012.

Long term (as the New York Post reported) that means the abortion rate “has fallen 19 percent since 2003 and 22 percent since 2000, according to the analysis” from the Health Department.
Posting on the Facebook account of New York State Right to Life, Barbara Meara, who is chairman, explained that there were numerous reasons for the city’s dropping abortion rate, including “the publicity and the education we’ve done on the Women’s Equality Act,” pro-abortion Governor Andrew Cuomo’s radical proposal to permit late abortions performed outside hospital settings, and allow non-physicians to perform abortions (among other provisions).

For all the happiness about the trend downward, unfortunately that doesn’t change that the number of abortions in New York City are incredibly high and concentrated in minority neighborhoods.
“The racial-ethnic breakdown shows the abortion rate was 61 percent among black women, 35 percent among Hispanics and about 14 percent among whites and Asians,” reported Carl Campanile.
The report comes in the wake of numbers from both the Centers for Disease Control and the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute which showed nationwide declines in both the number of abortions and the abortion rate.

Guttmacher reported there were 1.06 million abortions in 2011, a drop of 13% since 2008 and 550,000 fewer abortions than the high water mark of 1.6 million in 1990. Guttmacher found that the abortion rate has reached a low of 16.9, the lowest it has been since 1973.

Source: NRLC News