Kansas Abortions Drop 8 Percent in 2005, 4th Year of Continued Decline 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 1, 2006
Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) — Abortions in Kansas are still on the decline, having dropped again for the fourth year in a row. In 2005, abortions there decreased significantly, with a decline of 8 percent from the previous year.
The state health department reported that there were 10,542 abortions in Kansas in 2005, a drop from 11,446 in 2004.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says abortion has declined every year since 2001, when there were 12,422 abortions.
The report found 53.4 percent of the abortions were performed on Kansas women while 46.6 percent were done on women from other states, mostly from Missouri. The report shows 80 Kansas women went to other states to have abortions in 2005.
College-aged women in the 20-24 year-old category had the most number of abortions. Women between the ages of 25-29 had the next highest number of abortions followed by teenagers 15-19.
Caucasian women had 67 percent of the abortions in Kansas while African American women had 22.3 percent of all abortions and 10 percent were Hispanic.
According to the report, 81.7 percent of the women having abortions were unmarried.
Almost 80 percent of women having abortions had surgical abortions while over 9 percent had an abortion with the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug. The report said no partial-birth abortions were performed in 2005 and that there have not been any done in the state since 1999.
Most of the women having abortions in 2005 had already been pregnant at least once before. Just 29.3 percent had never been pregnant and 50 percent had two or more previous pregnancies at the time of their abortion.
Though most women were not married at the time of the abortion, only 41.3 percent had no children and 32.5 percent had two or more children at the time.
The number of repeat abortions in Kansas appears lower than in other states. Typically most states see about 40 percent of the women having a repeat abortion, but 61.6 percent of the abortions done in 2005 were first-time abortions. Some 24.4 percent were a second abortion and 14 percent of the abortions done in 2005 were on women who have had at least two abortions before.
Abortions in Kansas reached their lowest point in 1987, with 6,409 that year and the high point was the year Roe v. Wade was handed down, with 12,612 in 1973.
Abortions shot back up during the late 1990s, but have decreased steadily since President Bush’s initial election in 2000. The number of Kansas abortions has dropped nearly 16 percent since Bush first took office.
The number of abortions on out of state women in that time has dropped faster than the number of abortions on Kansas women.
In 2005, 414 abortions were performed at 22 weeks or more and the unborn baby was viable in 240 of those cases. In all of those cases, the abortion practitioner said the abortion must be done because the woman "would suffer substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function if she were forced to continue the pregnancy."
Related web sites:
Kansas Dept of Health and Environment – https://www.kdheks.gov
Kansans for Life – https://www.kfl.org
