The recession and abortion

According to Reuters, the recession may beincreasing the number of abortions:

The recession may be a factor influencing more Americans to opt out of parenthood with abortions and vasectomies, although there is no data available yet to suggest a trend.

Even so, there is some anecdotal evidence that would-be parents are factoring the rough economic times into the most personal of reproductive choices, some experts said.

In 2005, the last year for which data is available, the U.S. abortion rate fell to the lowest level since 1974, according to the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a nonprofit group focusing on reproductive issues.

But at the National Abortion Federation, a hotline for women seeking abortion information has been “ringing off the hook,” according to the group’s president, Vicki Saporta.

“We are currently getting more calls from women who report that they or their partner have recently lost their job, and we are also hearing from more women facing eviction,” she said.
One recent inquiry came from a 24-year-old married woman in Colorado who was evicted after her landlord went into foreclosure. Another came from a 32-year-old pregnant mother in Virginia who had lost her job and health insurance.

“As more and more women and families are struggling due to the crisis, it’s affecting more than just low-income families. Now more middle-class and working class families are facing the types problems that we’ve heard from low-income women,” Saporta said.
As with many other nonprofits, abortion assistance groups are being inundated with requests for aid just as funding is drying up.

In the first quarter of 2009, the New York Abortion Access Fund increased funding for abortions 60 percent from year-ago levels, and the number of women receiving assistance more than doubled.

The reach of the recession may stretch beyond women’s reproductive decisions to those of men. Lawrence Ross, a urologist and former president of the American Urological Association, said he and his colleagues have noticed a roughly 50 percent increase in vasectomies in the past four to six months, which he attributes in part to the ailing economy.