Chartsandgraphs: Births & Abortions in RVA
The Capital News Service recently sent me an article about abortions with a link to some raw data at the Virginia Department of Health. You can pull all kinds of interesting things — like, did you know there were zero women ages 14 or 15 married in Richmond in 2009 (Alexandria City had two, however) — but inside are some chartsandgraphs about births and abortions in Richmond.
The Capital News Service recently sent me an article about abortions with a link to some raw data at the Virginia Department of Health. You can pull all kinds of interesting things — like, did you know there were zero women ages 14 or 15 married in Richmond in 2009 (Alexandria City had two, however) — but below are some chartsandgraphs about births and abortions in Richmond.
A couple of notes: all of the data is from 2003 – 2009. Also, sometimes the numbers of births and abortions will not sum to the total number of pregnancies due to “natural fetal death.” And finally, I don’t claim to have any special surety about what this data means or, even, it’s correctness. It’s just pulled from the PDFs and slapped into some chartsandgraphs.
Total number of births, abortions, and pregnancies in RVA, ’03 – ’09
The total number of births, abortions, and then above that pregnancies, in Richmond.
Pregnancies in RVA, ’09
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% of pregnancies in RVA ending in abortions, ’0945.75% Births: 3,195 • Abortions: 2,694 |
Abortions in RVA by race, ’03 – ’09
On average Africa-Americans account for 66% of abortions in the City. As a reference point, in 2010 the population breakdown by race in Richmond was: 38% white, 57% black, and 5% other.
Average % of teenage abortions, ’03 – ’09
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Average % of teenage pregnancies, ’03 – ’09
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Note that teenagers are defined as 19 and under.
% of abortions in RVA that are non-marital, ’03 – ’09
The majority of abortions are “non-marital” — about 80% since 2003. While the number of abortions per year has stayed generally consistent the percent that were non-marital took a big dip in 2008. Which leads to this surprising graph:
Total number of marital abortions in RVA, ’03 – ’09
This graph really confused me — and I’m not certain I haven’t made a terrible typo. Perhaps something changed in 2007 to reclassify a procedure that in 2006 was not an abortion. Maybe a decrease in the divorce rate led to just more married people? I don’t know, but the amount of married people getting abortions in 2008 is almost five times greater than in 2003.
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I think it makes sense that there would be more marital abortions during an “economic downturn”. But that is just in my head, no real knowledge of the reality there.
It could also be as married couples get older, the wives may be having health issues should they find themselves pregnant, and that could account for the spike.
I’d have to agree that it has something to do with the economy. People can’t afford birth control, and can’t afford babies. Interesting to see how the results would be in a few years,
Adultry rate could have something to do with it too… I’m just sayin’
To add on to Daniel’s comment:
Pregnancy is also considered a pre-existing condition in that one usually has to be covered by their insurance policy for at least 6 months before the pregnancy will be covered. If there is a lapse or transition in coverage and a couple gets pregnant during that time, the prenatal and childbirth costs alone are overwhelming.
#1 Daniel, Here’s a graph of Virginia’s unemployment rate over the last couple of years.
No way I would have guessed that 45% of pregnancies are being terminated. Kind of shocking.
Another number to add is “Natural Fetal Deaths”:
2009 – 276
white – 140
afam – 126
other – 10
All of these theories about marital abortion are interesting, but unless someone can explain how non-marital abortions dropped the exact same amount at the exact same time, I don’t find any of them very persuasive.
For example, if the economy went south and married people got a lot more abortions, how come unmarried people got a lot fewer abortions in just such a way to perfectly offset the married person spike? If the economy affects abortions so strongly, why would it have precisely the opposite impact on married and unmarried people?
I’d be more inclined to believe that the same kinds of people are getting the same abortions, and that something changed about collecting marital status from people. Maybe we’re collecting more accurate data now. Maybe more kinds of abortion providers are required to collect and report marital status.
Justin –
Actually, the number of unmarried abortions seems pretty static through the years. The percentage drops recently as married peaks, but the overall number of abortions seems to fluxuate at roughly the same rate as the increase in marital abortions.
NOT ENOUGH CHARTS OR GRAPHS SHOULD ALSO BE UPDATED RATE OUT OF TEN 3
what does RVA means?