Provision of reproductive health information and services are the only proven way to meaningfully reduce abortion rates. Consider Western Europe: with a regional abortion rate approaching 10 per 1000 women—and lower in some nations—Western European women on average have half as many abortions as American women. Interestingly, levels of sexual activity between American and Western European women are similar. The difference? Access to contraception and comprehensive sexuality education are far more prevalent in Western Europe than in America.

Abortion rates in countries around the world in which abortion is illegal are the same as other nations in which abortions are legal.

While abortion remains legal, abortion rates have fallen for more than a decade in the United States overall, but there have actually been increases in abortion rates among poor women for the same reasons as above. More women have achieved access to family planning services as a function of their personal wealth, but current US public policy—including a failure to fund Title X services sufficiently—does not provide the means for prevention for women with little to no income.

Looking to our near neighbors to the south, we see that Latin American nations have some of the highest abortion rates in the world—higher than those of the US and Western Europe. Abortion is illegal in many or all cases in every Latin American country except for Cuba and in Mexico City (where it was partially legalized in 2007). In Peru, where abortion is largely illegal, abortion rates approach 2 per woman over her lifetime.

About 5,000 women die each year in Latin American countries due to unsafe abortion. And hundreds of thousands are hospitalized after seeking unsafe abortion alternatives.