Nearly one in four women in the United States (23.7%) will have an abortion by age 45, according to a new analysis by Guttmacher Institute researchers Rachel Jones and Jenna Jerman, just published in the American Journal of Public Health. By age 20, 4.6% of women will have had an abortion, and 19% will have done so by age 30.
For the first time in two decades, the abortion rate declined among women whose family income was less than 100% of the federal poverty level ($19,790 for a family of three in 2014). However, the abortion rate among poor women remains the highest of all groups examined in the study, at 36.6 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Abortion has become increasingly concentrated among poor women, who accounted for 49% of patients in 2014.