Abstinence Education = Fewer Abortions

(photo: 104babcock.wordpress.com)

That’s the finding of a recent analysis of data collected by the Centers for Disease Control.

The analysis, undertaken on behalf of San Antonio Coalition for Life, is posted on the Internet here.

Utilizing CDC abortion statistics for the years 2001-05, the analysis compared the rates of decline in the annual number of teen abortions between states that accepted federal funding for abstinence education and states which declined the funding.

As the chart at the beginning of this Daily Blog post indicates, the discrepancy was startling. Abortions among teens dropped by more than 20% over the 2001-05 period in the states that accepted abstinence funding, almost four times as much as the 5.2% decline in teen abortions in states that rejected abstinence education.

A similar difference in favor of abstinence education states is evident when the CDC data for the time period is narrowed down to only the number of abortions among teens under the age of 15. In states that accepted abstinence education, the rate of such abortions declined 23.1% between 2001-05; in states that rejected the funding, the rate of abortions declined only 7.5%.

As the study commissioned by San Antonio Coalition for Life states, “When it comes to effectively reducing teen abortions, it’s apparent that there are those who ‘get it,’ and those who don’t. In this particular case, it’s easy to let the numbers speak for themselves.”