Safe, Legal, and Rare

From the Sacramento Bee:

WASHINGTON - Abortion may flare up as the most emotional issue for senators and activists when confirmation hearings begin in September for President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts. But statistically, it is becoming less and less of a factor for American women.

The national abortion rate has been declining for more than two decades. It is now at its lowest since 1974, the year after the court's Roe v. Wade decision overturned states' abortion bans by ruling that a woman's decision to terminate pregnancy through surgery is a matter of privacy protected by the Constitution...

Meanwhile, data released last month by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, reported that fewer than 21 of every 1,000 women between 15 and 44 had an abortion in 2002, the most recent year for which data was available. That compares with a rate of more than 29 per 1,000 at abortion's peak in the United States, in 1980 and 1981. If the trend continues, abortion could soon recede to its 1974 rate, about 19 per 1,000 per women of childbearing age.

Interesting stuff. The article points out that a Roberts judgeship wouldn't turn the tide of Roe v. Wade.