The Indiana State Department of Health released its annual Terminated Pregnancy Report from 2017 and for the first time in nine years, the abortion rate is trending the wrong way. Since 2008, each year the Health Department has reported a decrease in the number of abortions performed in Indiana compared to the previous year. In 2017, there was a 6.8% increase in the barbaric practice. A total of 7,778 preborn human beings were killed last year compared to 7,280 in 2016.
Of the total, 7,172 or 92.2% came from Indiana residents, while the remaining 7.8% of mothers were residents of other states. The youngest to have an abortion in Indiana last year was just 13-years-old, otherwise the data shows an expected age distribution with 60.5%, of abortions coming from mothers in their 20’s. Mothers in their 40’s had the fewest abortions, making up just over 3% of the total, and the oldest woman to have an abortion was 46.
The data also shows the vast majority of abortions came from unmarried women. Unmarried mothers accounted for 6,792 abortions or about 87% of the total in Indiana. This statistic is no surprise considering the culture surrounding abortion encourages its use as a means of birth control and family planning.
A total of seven types of procedures were used last year in Indiana, with the most common technique being suction curettage. In this procedure, the cervix is dilated in order to fit a tube into the uterus to vacuum out the contents; i.e., the newly conceived human being. Pill-induced abortions accounted for the second most common type of procedure. Just over 36% of abortions were pill-induced in 2017 compared to only 26% in 2016.
Last year’s increase is a cause for concern since it is the first increase in nine years. However, the total number of abortions performed in Indiana last year is still far lower than in 2015 (7,957), 2014 (8,118), and 2013 (8,179). Hopefully 2017 was a fluke and the trend reverts back to continual annual decreases.
Pro life organizations and individuals have some work to do in order to stop the increase in abortions in Indiana. We can do this through counseling and spreading the information necessary for the mother to choose the best option for her and her child. Both deserve to live happy and healthy lives, and abortion results in the opposite. There are quite a few pro-life crisis pregnancy centers in Indiana. The majority of abortions in 2017 occured in Indianapolis, which has no less than five such centers.
The war on the preborn wages on, as seen in Indiana’s Terminated Pregnancy Report, but pro-life Hoosiers are up for the challenge. I am confident that 2018’s report, released around this time next year, will show the trend correcting itself back to a steady decrease in the number of abortions thanks to the hard work of pro-lifers.
