Study Shows Half of Women Getting Second Abortion, Don’t Use Private Insurance

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 4, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Study Shows Half of Women Getting Second Abortion, Don’t Use Private Insurance

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 4
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A new study from the pro-abortion Guttmacher institute appears to confirm a point the pro-life community was making during the debate over health care reform. Meanwhile, the new research on women getting abortions find half getting at least their second abortion and more poor women getting abortions.

Abortion advocates claimed insurance companies paid for most abortions and any limits on abortion funding would deprive women of that coverage.

The pro-life community pointed to figures showing most abortions are paid for out of pocket and protecting the rights of taxpayers to not have their tax dollars paying for abortions would not infringe on insurance coverage.

A new study from the Guttmacher Institute, a former Planned Parenthood affiliate that takes a pro-abortion position, appears to validate the pro-life perspective.

A new GI survey shows most women pay for abortions out of pocket, with insurance companies picking up the costs of just 12 percent. Some 57 percent of women paid for their abortions, 13 percent received help from a nonprofit pro-abortion group that pays for poor women’s abortions, and 20 percent got their abortions covered under Medicaid, as some states allow state tax dollars to pay for abortions.

The survey found one-third of women uninsured, one-third were on Medicaid, and one-third had private insurance coverage.

Of the women who did have private insurance at the time of their abortion, 63% still paid for their abortions out of pocket. Rachel Jones, a Guttmacher researcher, suggested that’s because some women may not have known their plan covered abortions while others may not have wanted the abortion in their insurance medical records, while the rest may have had plans that did not cover abortions.

The Guttmacher survey surveyed 9,493 women who had abortions from April 2008 through May 2009.

The survey also provided a profile of the typical woman having an abortion — she is in her 20s, unmarried, and often the mother of at least one child. Some 7 percent were teenagers while half of all women surveyed were getting their second or more abortion.

Guttmacher indicated the biggest change from its 2000 survey of women centered on the fact that more poor women are having abortions. Women below the poverty line comprised 27 percent of those seeking abortions in 2000 but 42 percent last year.

The proportion of abortion patients who were poor increased by almost 60%, with the pro-abortion research group saying "the deep economic recession may also have played a role, as financial concerns led more women to want to delay childbearing or limit the number of children they have."

Guttmacher also credits the network of abortion funding groups that provide women with cash for abortions, but not abortion alternatives, with raising the abortion rates among poor women.

Looking more closely at the survey data of women getting abortions: Fifty-eight percent of abortion patients in 2008 were in their 20s; 45% were never-married and not living with a partner; 61% were already mothers; 42% were living below the federal poverty line; 36% were white; 59% had at least some college education; and 73% were religiously affiliated.

Guttmacher also indicated abortion continues to target blacks, as they were "overrepresented among abortion patients," it said.

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