Abortion rates rose 5% in year before SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade: report

One year before the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion procedures in the United States increased by 5 percent.

On Wednesday, the CDC released a report that shows women in their 20s accounted for 57 percent of all abortion procedures in 2021. The total amount of legally induced abortions reported to the CDC that year was 625,978.

Data shows that 53 percent of those procedures were medication procedures. The use of abortion pills at or before nine weeks of gestation increased by 3 percent between 2020 and 2021.

In 2021, 93.5 percent of abortion procedures were done at or before 13 weeks of pregnancy, and 5.7 percent were done between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy. Only 0.9 percent were done at or after 21 weeks, the report shows.

Although the CDC released the new data, experts say that the numbers might not accurately reflect the total number of abortion procedures performed in the US because several states have incomplete reporting, or don't report abortion data.

According to Axios, the data is collected by state health departments that voluntarily partner with the CDC to collect statistics. 

The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research organization, estimates that the CDC annual report captures only 70 percent of total abortions performed in the US The group says the increase in abortion rose 8 percent, instead of the 5 percent that the CDC report shows.

The Institute says that California, Maryland, and New Hampshire are not reflected in the report and that these three states account for 20 percent of all abortion procedures in the U.S., the outlet reports.