Facts on Abortion
There are a lot of facts, questionnaires and data regarding abortion. However, getting to this information does require some digging around on the internet. This visualisation made in Affinity Designer (similar to adobe illustrator) is an example of how facts could be nicely presented without being hidden in paragraphs of text that people might skip over.
The visualisation includes quick facts about the methods/procedures of abortion including the sources where the information came from. The text and their bubbles were designed this way to give it a modern interesting look, instead of plain square text boxes. If i were to implement this on a bigger scale i would categorize it in sub-sections (medical, surgical, safety, etc.).
Data sources: Main source, View on abortion, USA and safety of (illegal) abortion methods
Acceptability of Abortion
We started off with some basic facts about abortion in regard to the methods and procedures, Which showed that abortion is among the safest medical procedures. It may be safe but how is the experience for those that undergo the procedures? That will be investigated in the next visualisation regarding the evaluation of the medical and surgical abortion experience for women.
A study was conducted by guttmacher institute and planned parenthood federation of america regarding an evaluation of the medical and surgical abortion experience for women. The study had the goal to determine the effectiveness of methotrexate and misoprostol (2 abortion methods) for early abortions, but we’ll be looking at a different section of the data where the participants rate their experience.
The number of women participating in clinical trial of medical abortion is 304, of which 186 received a methotrexate-induced abortion and the remaining 118 were offered a medical abortion but chose for a surgical option instead. Participants answered self-administered questionnaires before and after the procedure. 255 (84%) completed the follow up questionnaire. The answers to the questions were a predefined worded scale or five-point Likert scale with 1 as low and 5 as high
Medical: Methotrexate was administered and misoprostol were prescribed according to protocol
Surgical: 90% were performed with an electrical vacuum aspiration and 10% with a manual one.
Data source: The study conducted
Abortion Methods per region
The women who rated their experience luckily had the ability to choose their preferred method. However, not everyone is able to make this choice as the methods are not widely available in different parts of the world. In some regions, not all countries feature a wide range of methods which will be shown in the next section.
From the WHO - Global Abortion Policies Database, clinical and service-delivery aspects of abortion were provided per country/region. Within this topic was a sub-topic related to the methods of abortion that were allowed. For some countries no data was available. To make the data coherent the design choice was made to list the methods per region, instead of having a tally per country. The percentage of countries in each region stems from the total number of countries in that region, resulting in somewhat normalized data increasing readability.
Misoprostol only: Medical method in the form of tablets to be inserted orally or vaginally. The effectiveness rating lies between 66% and 90%
Combination of mifepristone-misoprostol: up to 7 or 8 weeks, the combination of mifepristone-misoprostol is to be taken orally with an effectiveness of 92 out of 100 cases.[3] This will terminate the pregnancy in approximately 4 hours, causing vaginal bleeding and cramping.
Dilation and evacuation: Surgical method more common in later stages of the pregnancy (second trimester) where the cervix is dilated and the fetal is then removed. It is a common procedure after a miscarriage to remove pregnancy tissue.
Vacuum Aspiration: Surgical method where the uterine contents are removed by suction, most commonly performed up to the first 12 weeks(first trimester).
Data source: Global Abortion Policies Data
Support for abortion by age and level of legalization U.S in 2019
In age set 18 to 29, we can see that 36 per cent of people support legal abortion in all situation. And age sets gets higher the agreement of abortion in all situation gets lower. In contrast, 18to 29 age set thinks abortion should be illegal with 17% and it gets higher when the age gets higher. The younger people in the U.S., are more positive about abortion and we can see that approval decreases and opposition increases as age set gets higher.
Data source: Share of adults in the United States who support abortion in 2019
Abortion rate, the ratio by age in US 2016
Abortion of women in their early 20s was the highest with an abortion rate of 19.1 per 1,000 women, followed by those in their late 20s with an abortion rate of 17.8 cases. The youngest (under 15) and oldest (≥40) women were the lowest at 0.4 and 2.5, respectively.
In contrast, the youngest (under 15) was the highest with an abortion ratio of 734 per 1000 pregnant woman. You can see that teen pregnancy can be confirmed to have a high abortion ratio because of many unwanted pregnancies. And in age set, the 20s have the highest abortion rate, which can be linked to the abortion supporting rate on the first graph.
Data source: US abortion rate & ration by age
Percentage of abortion in the US in 2019 by fetal age
About two-thirds of abortions (65.5%) took place in the eighth week of pregnancy. It seems that the abortion rate gradually decreases as the fetal age gets higher (14.7% in 9~10 weeks, 8.2% in 11~12 weeks, 6.3% in 13~15 weeks, 4.1% in 16~20 weeks, and 1.3% in 21 weeks or more.
Data source: Distribution of abortions in the U.S. in 2016
In this section, we have seen the rate of abortion change under the circumstances, and there are many other things besides the fact that it affects the rate. Next, visualization will introduce impact of the economic perspective on abortion rates.
Visualization 1 what are the costs of raising a child
One of the major reasons for women to take an abortion is not being able to afford a child(Source). That raises the question how much money it actually costs to raise a child. Visualization 1 shows how the expenses on a child differ by family and income status. These groups are averages of their respective income group (see the full report here).
Visualization 2 Indicators of the affect of abortion on Economic Outcomes for Women
A study from 2019 investigated the economic outcomes of women between 1973 and 2015-2017. In the 1970s abortion legalization has had an influence on these results. This research also made a clear distinction between black and white women. By looking at these bar charts you can see that it indicates that allowing abortions has had a positive effect on the socialeconomic status of white and especially black women.
Visualization 3 on the Financial Outcomes between the Near Limit and Turnaway Group
A study from January 2020 based on the larger Turnaway study went into more dept on the differences in economic outcomes between women who were denied an abortion within 3 weeks after and women who receipt an abortion within 2 weeks before the gestational age limit. The Turnaway and Near Limit group respectively. Over a period of 6 - 9 years they looked at different factors to determine the financial state of these women. The whole article can be found here.
The visualizations in figure 2a and 2b are representing the difference between these groups. The x axis represents the number of years from the birth year. The y axis represents the change in outcome for the two different groups. Where a positive value means that the index value (Financial Distress or Credit Access) of the Turnaway Group is higher than the index value of the Near Limit group minus the difference in value at Year from birth = -1. The actual report shows a similar graph.
Thus in short the formula is: Effect size = Turnaway index value - Near Limit index value - Reference value.
Where Reference value = Turnaway index value (-1) - Near Limit index value (-1)
The light colored area is a 95% confidence interval.
Having looked at the economic implications of being denied an abortion we should consider changing laws to prevent this from happening. The next section will dive into what the certain law conditions for different countries are right now and how they are changing.
Abortion Law around the world
The legal status of Abortion varies greatly in different parts of the world. Today there are still 17 countries that forbid Abotion under any circumstances and 34 countries that only allow Abortion in order to save a life. 39 countries allow Abortion if it would preserve health and 8 countries allow it under broad circumstances such as economic grounds, age or health. Most first world countries, 57 around the world, allow Abortion if its requested by the woman.
Data source: Numbers per legal category /155 countries in the world as of 30 may 2020
Change in Abortion Law over the last 25 years
Over the last 25 years 18 countries overturned laws on total bans of Abortions. 5 of those countries now allow Abortion in order to save a life, 11 allow it to preserve physical or mental health and 2 countries changed from completely banning it to allowing it on request of the women.
Data source: Progress over time
Women and their access to safe Abortion
This visualisation shows the percentage of females in reproductive age that live in countries with certain laws on Abortion. We see here that almost half of the worlds female population lives in countries that have strict rules on getting Abortions, this often leads to women having to use unsafe methods to have an Abortion or leaves them with children they cant care for.
Data source: Numbers of women of reproductive age living in countries that forbid abortion
All this change we are seeing in Abortion law, indicating a future where abortion will be fully legal, we need to have a look at what drives this legal changes. The changing laws are caused by a growing awearness for abortion, for a long time it has been something that women would not share with others out of fear of rejection from the public. However the public's opinions are changing, more people are starting to fight for women's rights and this includes the right to decide over your own body. In the following chapter you can find more information about public opinions on Abortion.
Views on abortion by religious groups and beliefs
The graph shows the views on if abortions should be legal or illegal by several religious or non religious group(s) in 2014. As can be seen, religious group believers who agree that abortions should be allowed are mostly from groups such as Buddhists, Jews, Hindus and non religious people. These are represented by percentages between 68% to 82% who believe that abortions should be legal.
However, while not as high, religious groups such as catholics, historically black protestants, muslims and orthodox christians still agree to legalize abortions but these numbers are only in the approval percentages between 48% and 55%.
Looking on the opposite side, the most disapproving towards abortions are jehova’s witnesses with 75%, following Evangelical protestants with 63% and Catholic with 47% which is close to Orthodox christians with 45%. While, for all the groups, “undecided” is not a significant factor, the highest number are muslims with 9%, following jehovah’s witness with 7% and Historically black protestant with 6%.
Data source: Pew Research Center (2014)
Views on Abortion by political parties in the USA
These 4 pie charts show the different views on abortions by the different political parties and ideologies in the United States of America in 2019. As can be seen from these graphs, the 2 parties/ideologies which are mostly against abortions are Conservative Republicans or lean republican with 77% and moderate or liberal republicans or lean republican with 41%.
The 2 most accepting parties/ideologies are Liberal Democrat or lean democrat with 91% and Conservative or moderate democrat or lean democrat with 75%. From what can be seen, while republicans are mostly against abortions, democrats are mostly for abortions.
Data source: Pew Research Center (2019)
Public opinion on abortion in the USA over time
This line graph shows the change of public opinion on abortion in the United States of America from 1995 to 2019. No points exist for 1997 and 2002 due to no data being available for these years. As can be seen from the line graph, the highest numbers of people believing abortions shouls be legal is at the start and end of the line graph, with 60% during 1995 and 61% during 2019.
The point at which the percentage of people disagreeing with abortions almost overtook the opposite group was during 2009 with 44% disagreeing and 47% agreeing. A steady increase of people believing abortions should be legal is between 2015 and 2019.
Data source: Pew Research Center (2019)
Public Opinion on abortion around the world
The map here shows the percentage of people in several different countries around the world that believe abortions should be legalized in 2013 or 2015. As can be seen, north america as well as europe, australia and oceania as well as most of asia are pink, which shows a larger amount of people believing that abortions should be legalized while most of africa and south america are blue.
This shows that these countries are less agreeing or do not agree at all on the fact that abortions should be legalized. Of course there are exclusions in some continents like south africa in africa or argentina and brazil in south america who are more approving towards abortions than the rest of the continent. This data can also be seen visualized in the tree graph as well.
Data source: IPSOS (Global Attitudes on Abortion, Collected for Buzzfeed(2015)) ,
IPSOS (Global Attitudes on Abortion, Collected for Buzzfeed(2015)) and StatisticaConclusion
All things considered, abortion is an important topic that has had a big impact on women when many countries legalized it. Just going through an abortion can bring a lot of stress with the risk of health impications or even dead. This is caused by the different methods out there which we should strive to make more safe, especially in developing countries. Most women who take an abortion are adults, but also minors are undergoing abortions. The ratio of women under 15 who if pregnant take an abortion is really. Besides the hard choice of taking an abortion, being denied an abortion can have big financial implications. Leading to significant increases in financial stress for women who are denied an abortion just two weeks after the gestational limit. Unfortuantly there are still many countries in the world who do not allow abortion or only in specific conditions. Though things are slowly changing as more and more developing countries are reducing restricitions on abortion. To change laws the public opinion has to shift. We see that there are huge differences between religions and countries. That's where the focus should be to envoke more progressive views on abortion. It's a long journey, but hopefully as time progresses so do abortion laws to give women more freedom in their choice of their own body.