Abortion Information

Abortion ends a pregnancy before birth.  It occurs naturally in 15–40 percent of all established pregnancies — when an embryo or fetus stops developing and the body expels it.  This is called spontaneous abortion, miscarriage, or early pregnancy loss.  Women choose abortion in less than 25 percent of the 6,000,000 pregnancies that are diagnosed in the U.S. every year — 50 percent of which are unintended.  This is called induced abortion.

Women have turned to abortion to end unwanted pregnancies throughout the ages.  In the U.S., induced abortion was common among Native Americans, and it was legal from colonial times to the middle of the 19th century.  But unclean, primitive medical practices made it very dangerous.  To protect women’s lives, laws against abortion began to be passed during the mid-1800s.  But by the middle of the  20th century, cleaner, more advanced medical procedures made safe abortion possible.  All U.S. laws against abortion were overturned in 1973 by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.  Today, abortion is legal nationwide and is one of the safest of all available medical procedures.

Use the navigation bar on the left to find up-to-date information about choosing abortion, first-trimester options, risks and side effects, various procedures, and information about the thousands of fake clinics that have been set up to frighten women away from choosing abortion.

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