Indiana Abortions Drop 5% in 2010, Lowest Level Since 1977

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 30, 2012   |   12:06PM   |   Indianapolis, IN

Abortions in the state of Indiana dropped five percent in 2010, according to a new report from the state health department, which puts them at their lowest levels since 1977.

Newly-released abortion data from the Indiana State Department of Health reveals Indiana’s abortion rate dropped to a 33-year low in 2010 as a result of a 5% drop in abortions from 2009 to 2010. There were 10,031 unborn children victimized by abortions in 2010, a decrease of 526 from the previous year.

The statistics are included in the Indiana Induced Termination of Pregnancy Report for 2010 and are the most current available for Indiana. They reveal Indiana’s abortion rate has now dropped over 8% since 2008 and has fallen nearly 40% from Indiana’s highest annual abortion rate of 16,505 in 1980.

The new information, provided to LifeNews by Indiana Right to Life, shows that, while the overall abortion rate is dropping, the 2010 abortion statistics expose a startling rise in the use of the dangerous abortion drug RU 486. According to the 2010 statistics, the number of abortions involving mifepristone climbed 35% between 2009 and 2010 accounting for 1,968 abortions.

Mike Fichter, the president of Indiana Right to Life, says that marks an accelerated spike in abortion drug rates that have more than doubled since 2005. Nearly one in five abortions in Indiana is now one using the drug that has killed dozens of women and injured thousands more.

“We are pleased that Indiana’s abortion rate continues to fall, but at the same time we know that it’s not falling fast enough for the over ten thousand children who are still dismembered in Indiana abortion clinics and discarded with surgical waste each year,” Fichter said. “We are shocked by the rapid increase in the use of chemical abortifacients that are largely unregulated. This is an alarming trend that the Indiana legislature must address.”

Fichter believes the decline in Indiana’s abortion rate is due to a variety of factors, including pro-life policies passed by the Indiana legislature, expanded efforts by Indiana crisis pregnancy centers to provide alternatives to abortion, and a growing awareness of the humanity of the unborn child through technology such as ultrasound.  He also believes high school and college students are coming to the pro-life movement in unprecedented numbers and are helping abortion-vulnerable peers to choose life when experiencing a crisis pregnancy.

Fichter also notes that the full impact of the sweeping pro-life provisions passed by the Indiana legislature in 2011 will not be reflected in Indiana statistics until the 2012 data is reported — meaning the number of abortions will likely be driven down further.

“We’re on the right track in Indiana,” says Fichter. “This most recent decline will energize and motivate Indiana’s pro-life community to work even harder to bring about the day when abortion is a sad and tragic memory of the past.”

In January 2008, RU 486 maker Danco Laboratories announced approximately 13 percent of all abortions in the United States involved mifepristone — a number that may seem low but it is double the number of women who used the abortion drug in 2001.

The report also showed 57 percent of places that did abortions have the abortion drug, compared with just 33 percent in 2001. Ultimately, Danco indicated that 840,000 women in the United States have had abortions with its dangerous drug – a number that is very likely over one million in the two and a half years that have passed.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

 

With the drug having killed dozens of women worldwide and injured more than 2,200 alone in the United States, according to April 2011 FDA figures, pro-life groups have been concerned about Planned Parenthood putting women’s health at risk.

RU 486  and its companion drug are administered between the fifth and ninth weeks of pregnancy, after pregnancy has been confirmed and the process typically involves three trips to a doctor. About half of the women abort while at the doctor’s office, with another 26 percent having an abortion within the next 20 hours at any location at home or in public. The remainder either have an abortion in the coming weeks or none at all if the drug fails to work — making it so a surgical abortion is required.

Through April, the FDA reports 2,207 adverse events related to the use of RU 486, including 14 deaths, 612 hospitalizations, 58 ectopic pregnancies, 339 blood transfusions, and 256 cases of infections in the United States alone. A European drug manufacturer has publicly stated that 28 women have died worldwide after using RU 486/mifepristone.

Last year, LifeNews.com reported  about a Portuguese girl who died after an abortion with the RU 486 abortion drug caused Clostridium sordellii septic shock, the same deadly infection that caused the death of Holly Patterson and other women in the U.S. In March new information showed the first woman in Australia died from a lethal infection contracted after using the deadly RU 486 abortion drug.