Teenage Abortion, Birth and Pregnancy Statistics: An Update

This research note presents national and state-level statistics on numbers of adolescent pregnancies and on pregnancy outcomes in the US for 1985 using data from the US National Center for Health Statistics The Alan Guttmacher Institute the Centers for Disease Control and the US Census Bureau. Results show that in 1985 1) 1031000 teenagers become pregnant of whom 31000 were under age 15 2) the pregnancy outcomes included 477710 live births and 416170 induced abortions; 3) women aged 15-17 obtained 165630 abortions and those aged 18-19 obtained 233570 abortions; 4) women under age 20 accounted for 26% of all abortions and 13% of all births; 5) 4.4% of all women aged 15-19 had an abortion; 6) the abortion rate rises from 31/1000 for those aged 15-17 to 63/1000 for those aged 18-19 peaks at 18 and then declines slowly to age 21; 7) the birth rate for all women aged 15-19 was 51/1000 and the pregnancy rate was 110/1000; 8) 46% of those under 15 43% of those 15-17 and 41% of those 18-19 who became pregnant obtained an abortion; 9) the abortion rate for married women age 15-19 was 27 compared with 44 for unmarried women the same age; 10) a cohort of 1000 adolescents would have had 227 abortions and 261 birth by age 20; 11) the pregnancy rate among nonwhite teenagers aged 15-19 was twice as high as that among similar white teenagers; 12) Hispanics aged 15-19 had an abortion rate of 50 and a birth rate of 86/1000; 13) California had the highest abortion rate for 15-19 year olds and the lowest rates were found in Utah Kentucky North Dakota and South Dakota; 14) birth rates were generally high in the southern states from Georgia through Arizona; 15) the lowest birth rates were in Massachusetts Minnesota New Hampshire Connecticut and Iowa; 16) pregnancy rates for women aged 15-19 ranged from 60/1000 in North Dakota to 151/1000 in California. Finally the pregnancy rate reached its highest level (111/1000) in 1980 and experienced only minor fluctuations subsequently.