Vermont’s abortion rate is lower than the national average and continues to decline, mirroring a national trend.
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there were 1,265 abortions performed in Vermont in 2015, the latest year for which the agency compiled such data.
That gave Vermont a rate of 10.9 abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, down from 13 in 2006. The national rate in 2015 was 11.8.
Federal documents also show that the number of abortions in Vermont fell 21 percent in the decade from 2006 to 2015. Nationally, the number dropped by 24 percent.
During the same time period, “the abortion rate decreased among women in all age groups,” the CDC noted.
The new federal report is the CDC’s annual, in-depth look at abortion statistics across the country. The document breaks down abortion by a variety of categories including the age, ethnicity and marital status of the mother; weeks of gestation; and method of the procedure.
In total, there were 638,169 abortions nationwide in 2015. Vermont had a small share of those, but the CDC’s rate and ratio measures – based on population and birth rates, respectively – are a better way to measure the state’s ranking.
Seventeen states had higher abortion rates than Vermont in 2015, with the highest being a 23.1 rate in New York state and New York City combined.
The nation’s lowest reported abortion rate was 2.8 in South Dakota, though officials noted that Wyoming’s statistics were too low to be included in comparisons. Also, three states – California, Maryland and New Hampshire – didn’t report any data to the CDC.
Vermont’s abortion ratio, which is calculated on the number of abortions per 1,000 live births, was 214. There were 12 states that had higher ratios, with the combined New York state/New York City area again coming out on top with a ratio of 392.
South Dakota’s ratio was just 36.
No matter the measure, the nation’s abortion statistics are continuing to trend downward.
The CDC says that, after the legalization of abortion in 1973, the number, rate and ratio of abortion procedures “increased rapidly, reaching the highest levels in the 1980s before decreasing at a slow yet steady pace.”
National data shows the number of abortions at 842,855 in 2006; that number dipped below 700,000 in 2012 and stayed there.
In Vermont, the number of abortions was 1,610 in 2006. That dropped below 1,300 in 2012, though there have been some upticks in the last few years of reported data.
The differences are even more stark on a longer timeline. There were 1,781 abortions performed in Vermont in 2000 and 3,184 in 1990, a year in which there were 1.43 million abortions nationwide.
Vermont is following national abortion trends in other categories, as well.
For example, the state’s highest abortion rates are for mothers in their 20s, as is the case across the U.S. On the other hand, abortions among adolescents aged 15-19 are relatively low both in Vermont (10.2 percent) and nationwide (9.8 percent).
The CDC report says that, between 2006 and 2015, the adolescent abortion rate decreased by 54 percent nationally. “This decrease in abortion rate was greater than the decreases for women in any older age group,” the report says.
Vermont also matches up fairly well with national data on weeks of gestation at the time when an abortion is performed. Federal statistics say nearly 72 percent of Vermont abortions happen at eight weeks or earlier, and another 24 percent happen between nine and 13 weeks.
Nationally, there has been a shift toward earlier abortions, and the CDC says the number of abortions performed at more than 13 weeks has “remained consistently low.”
