A staggering 296,035 lives lost to abortion in Kentucky since 1973

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) – Since 1973, when elective abortion was legalized nationwide underneath the banner of Roe v. Wade, no less than 296,035 lives have been misplaced to abortion in Kentucky, in accordance with info gathered from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and Kentucky’s Cupboard for Well being and Household Companies.

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At the very least 118,282 Kentucky residents are included in that determine, however 26 years of lacking knowledge renders the tally a major underestimation. Since 2017 alone, residents of 30 different states have obtained abortions within the commonwealth. 

Solely 967 abortions had been reported in Kentucky throughout 1973, however the annual numbers rapidly soared to as excessive as 11,340 by 1979 – bringing the last decade complete to 53,573 terminated pregnancies. Abortions peaked within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, when there have been 78,045 and 79,451 authorized abortions reported to the CDC. A significant drop got here within the 2000s and 2010s; each many years dipped under 40,000 complete abortions.

Overwhelmingly, ladies aged 20-24 had essentially the most abortions in Kentucky, with the 25-29 demographic trailing behind. There have been 40,791 youngsters 19 or youthful who had abortions; 1,925 of these younger ladies had been underneath 15 years previous.

Info on the gestational age of aborted fetuses was solely reported by the CDC starting in 1987, leaving 14-year hole in Kentucky’s abortion historical past. In that point, roughly 159,598 abortions occurred within the first trimester; 32,851 had been carried out within the second or third trimesters.

Practically 90% of reported abortions had been accomplished by way of surgical procedures, which included suction curettage, sharp curettage and dilation and evacuation. Solely 15,205 unborn lives had been ended utilizing remedy. Saline and prostaglandin instillation had been used to terminate 93 pregnancies, although the process was not reported after 2000.

Most abortions up to now 50 years had been carried out on ladies who had given delivery no less than as soon as previous to the process. Solely 69,792 had not birthed a toddler on the time of the abortion; greater than 15,000 had been moms to a few or extra youngsters.

Whereas 58,535 ladies had been repeat sufferers, having acquired a number of earlier abortions, practically 100,000 ladies obtained their first abortion between January 1989 and April 2022.

Following a constant decline in reported authorized abortions beginning in 2010, the process is once more on the rise in Kentucky. In 2020 and 2021, abortions surpassed the 4,000 annual threshold for the primary time in a decade.

If the Supreme Court docket overturns Roe v. Wade when the excessive courtroom points a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group this summer season, abortions would instantly be banned within the commonwealth, bringing the process’s regular march to a halt simply shy of 300,000 lives misplaced.

Editor’s Observe: Info for this report was gathered from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and Kentucky’s Cupboard for Well being and Household Companies, and displays Kentucky abortions by April 2022. Gaps in knowledge offered to the CDC and a number of adjustments to the formatting and reporting of abortion statistics by the CDC up to now 5 many years leaves many pockets of data lacking when analyzing the historical past of Kentucky’s abortion panorama.