Connecticut Sees Abortions Increase Despite Declining Nationwide Trend
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 24, 2008
Hartford, CT (LifeNews.com) — The number of abortions in Connecticut is on the rise with a jump of about 2,000 in 2006 and another jump of over 400 last year. That increase occurred despite a general decline in the abortion totals nationwide that have seen abortions reach their lowest point since the days after the Roe v. Wade decision.
According to new figures from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of the Planned Parenthood abortion business, Connecticut abortions rose from 12,110 in 2005 to 14,112 in 2006.
Last year, the number rose again to 14,534, an increase of 422 more abortions.
Officials at AGI said the rise in Connecticut abortions is only because more women are coming there from surrounding states to have abortions.
Despite the rise in Connecticut abortions, they are still lower than the level they were in the 1980s, when more than 20,000 abortions were done annually in the northeastern state.
Michael C. Culhane, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, told the Connecticut Post that he’s very concerned about the rise and his group is working on a paper examining the reasons so they can be addressed.
He told the Post that abortions would drop again if the Connecticut legislature would enact the kinds of laws seen in other states that have lowered abortion totals.
"There’s no parental notification requirement for abortion in Connecticut," Culhane said. "If your daughter needs an aspirin in school, she has to have parental permission. But she can go out and have an abortion," Culhane said. "Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?"
Susan Yolen, a vice president with Planned Parenthood in Connecticut, told the newspaper she thinks part of the reason for the increase in abortions is the rise in the number of young women in the state.
U.S. Census data show the number of women in the 20-to-29-year-old female age group is growing at a rate of five percent annually.
"What do you think the average age of a woman in Connecticut having an abortion is?" Yolen asks. "Twenty to 30 years old. The teenage pregnancy rate is declining."
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