Thread by @GidMK

Abortion statistics are a fascinating example of bias, because there are a great many misconceptions about abortion that are nevertheless common

Try and answer the following questions without looking them up

(I'm using mostly US/EU/Aus stats here, while some of this is generalizable to other places, many of the stats will be very different particularly in low-income regions. Also, even within similar countries these stats can be quite different, so this is very general)

1. What is the most common age-group for people who have induced abortions?

2. What proportion of women who have an abortion have had an abortion in the past?

3. What proportion of those who get abortions already have at least 1 child?

4. Is the abortion rate higher or lower for women with partners than those without?

5. How many children, on average, do people who get abortions want to have in their lives?

6. How much does reported recent partner violence increase someone's chance of getting an abortion?

I think these are all interesting questions, because in general there's this popular image that a lot of people hold on to of a teenager accidentally getting pregnant and needing an abortion

But, statistics don't really agree with that image. For example, the answer to question 1 is 20-29 - most people who get abortions are in their 20s (or 30s in some countries), not their teens

The other questions are similarly revealing:

Q2: only 20-30% have had previous abortions
Q3: >50% have at least one child already
Q4: higher - more likely to have an abortion if in a relationship
Q5: most want 1-2 children overall
Q6: 100%+ increased likelihood

In other words, the most likely person to get an abortion already has at least one child, is in a relationship that has an elevated risk of violence (but is not married), and has never had an abortion before

Even some of the associations we're used to don't necessarily hold up. For example, better education increases the likelihood of having had an abortion in some low-income countries, but usually decreases the likelihood in wealthier places …pregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

Some references for the above:

guttmacher.org/report/charact…
link.springer.com/article/10.118…
abort-report.eu/europe/
journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11…

Another important reference - there is very little evidence that banning abortion reduces abortion rates, but it does increase unsafe abortions, which are one of the leading causes of maternal mortality globally who.int/reproductivehe…