Pierce County has the highest abortion rate of any county in the state of Washington, and it has ... Pierce’s abortion rate lea | Asian sex
Home

Pierce County has the highest abortion rate of any county in the state of Washington, and it has ... Pierce’s abortion rate lea

Pierce County has the highest abortion rate of any county in the state of Washington, and it has been that way since 2001, according to the state Health Department.

In 2004, there were 22.8 abortions per thousand women of child-bearing age in Pierce County - those between ages 15 and 44. King County had the second highest rate, with 22.4 abortions per that group.

The state also found that both abortion and teen pregnancy are on the decline in Pierce County and statewide, and have been so over most of the past 15 years, mirroring national downward trends in both figures.

The number of abortions in Washington peaked in 1990, when there were 30,613. It has decreased each year since, save for small upticks in the late 1990s.

In 2004, there were 24,568 abortions in Washington, with 3,665 of those in Pierce County. The figures come from the state's annual compilation of birth and abortion statistics.

The Health Department keeps tabs on how the counties compare to help figure out where state family planning money is most needed and to make sure services are safe, among other reasons, said Cynthia Harris, a consultant with the state office of family planning and reproductive health.

Though compiling the numbers is relatively easy - abortions and births must be reported to the state - Harris said figuring out what's driving the trends is not.

"We are not aware of any particular reason for the higher level of abortion" in Pierce County, she said, which was echoed by the county Health Department and people on both sides of the abortion issue.

The state's abortion-reporting form doesn't ask about education, economic background, access to family planning services or other factors that might help explain. There's a section for race, but officials said it often goes unfilled.

Access to abortion services might play a role, but it isn't the whole picture. Three of the state's 40 Planned Parenthood clinics, one of the places women can get abortions, are in Pierce County; some rural counties have none.

While King County's abortion rate - the number of abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age - is lower than Pierce's, it and rural Kittitas County had the state's highest percentage - the number per 100 pregnancies - that ended in abortion in 2004, both 28.1 percent.

In other words, figuring out what's going on is complex, said Riley Peters, senior state epidemiologist for the maternal and child health assessment unit.

Kathy McEntee, president of the Washington State March for Life, noted that abortions might be down because there are more places now than in the past for women to turn for financial and adoption help if they find themselves in a pregnancy they don't want.

"We have also seen a real increase in the use of emergency contraception, and that has something to do with it," said Kristin Gludberg, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington.

Several factors also likely contribute to Washington's decline in teen pregnancy, which peaked at about one in 10 women aged 15 to 19 in 1990, a rate that has fallen to about one in 20 in 2004.

Teenagers, in general, are delaying sexual activity, and have greater access to sex education and contraception, Harris said. McEntee noted they are also more likely to engage in sexual behaviors other than intercourse.

Even so, the birth rate in Washington has remained below the national average since the mid-1980s, which Peters, the senior epidemiologist, said might be because Washington has a higher percentage of Asian and white, non-Hispanic women, who generally give birth later and have fewer children.

This is cache, read story here

admin – Thu, 2006 – 09 – 07 11:00