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Catholic World News News Feature

Survey Says Catholics Have Higher Rate Of Abortion August 08, 1996

NEW YORK (CWN) - A new survey produced by a population control advocacy center released on Wednesday shows that Catholic women have abortions at a rate nearly a third above that of Protestant women.

The survey of nearly 10,000 women who entered abortion clinics in 1994 and 1995 conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute also showed that about half of all women in the United States will have an abortion at sometime in their life.

Among other results, the survey found that women with family incomes below $15,000 accounted for 28.7 percent of abortions yet make up just 15.4 percent of the childbearing-age population. And unmarried women living with a man accounted for 20.2 percent of abortions, yet constitute just 5.8 percent of the population.

Among the better news, researchers found young women still are most likely to get abortions-but the teenagers' share has dropped, from 25.5 percent in 1987 to 21.5 percent last year. "We can't entirely account for that" drop, said study author Stanley Henshaw, who noted that the overall US abortion rate has dropped about 10 percent in recent years while the rate of teenagers who gave birth rose. "Part of the reason is that they're continuing more of their pregnancies," he added.

A major finding of the survey was that 57.5 percent of women aborting their children say they were using a contraceptive the month they became pregnant. The study authors surmise that the contraceptives failed because they were misused or not used consistently.