section_path: Incidence
section_name: Incidence
paragraph_text: Incidence
  
  There are two commonly used methods of measuring the incidence of abortion:
  
  In many places, where abortion is illegal or carries a heavy social stigma, medical reporting of abortion is not reliable. For this reason, estimates of the incidence of abortion must be made without determining certainty related to standard error. The number of abortions performed worldwide was characterized as stable in the early 2000s, with 41.6 million having been performed in 2003 and 43.8 million having been performed in 2008. The abortion rate worldwide was 28 per 1000 women per year, though it was 24 per 1000 women per year for developed countries and 29 per 1000 women per year for developing countries. The same 2012 study indicated that in 2008, the estimated abortion percentage of known pregnancies was at 21% worldwide, with 26% in developed countries and 20% in developing countries.
  
  On average, the incidence of abortion is similar in countries with restrictive abortion laws and those with more liberal access to abortion. Restrictive abortion laws are associated with increases in the percentage of abortions performed unsafely. The unsafe abortion rate in developing countries is partly attributable to lack of access to modern contraceptives; according to the Guttmacher Institute, providing access to contraceptives would result in about 14.5 million fewer unsafe abortions and 38,000 fewer deaths from unsafe abortion annually worldwide.
  
  The rate of legal, induced abortion varies extensively worldwide. According to the report of employees of Guttmacher Institute it ranged from 7 per 1000 women per year (Germany and Switzerland) to 30 per 1000 women per year (Estonia) in countries with complete statistics in 2008. The proportion of pregnancies that ended in induced abortion ranged from about 10% (Israel, the Netherlands and Switzerland) to 30% (Estonia) in the same group, though it might be as high as 36% in Hungary and Romania, whose statistics were deemed incomplete.
  
  An American study in 2002 concluded that about half of women having abortions were using a form of contraception at the time of becoming pregnant. Inconsistent use was reported by half of those using condoms and three-quarters of those using the birth control pill; 42% of those using condoms reported failure through slipping or breakage. Of the other half of women, who were not using contraception at the time of becoming pregnant, the vast majority had used contraception at some point in the past, indicating some level of dissatisfaction with the contraceptive options available to them. Indeed, 32% of these contraceptive nonusers cited concerns about contraceptive methods as their reason for nonuse, and a more recent study found similar results. Taken together, these statistics suggest that new contraceptive methods, such as non-hormonal contraceptives or male contraceptives, could reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion rates.
  
  The Guttmacher Institute has found that "most abortions in the United States are obtained by minority women" because minority women "have much higher rates of unintended pregnancy". In a 2022 analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, while people of color comprise 44% of the population in Mississippi, 59% of the population in Texas, 42% of the population in Louisiana, and 35% of the population in Alabama, they comprise 80%, 74%, 72%, and 70%, respectively, of those receiving abortions.