Bioethics FAQ 2: Repeat abortion

I definitely believe that there should be a limit on abortions. Abortions should not be used as a type of birth control. Too many teenagers are having multiple abortions, and this is unacceptable. If a your woman makes a mistake that is one thing, but mistakes are supposed to be learning experiences. If abortions are used as a "way out"and there is no limit, I feel that abortions will become more and more common in the future.

I want to once again point people to this report from AGI on women who have repeat abortions. Their most important finding is that women who have repeat abortions are just as likely to be using contraception as women who have only one abortion

Regardless of whether they were obtaining a first or repeat abortion, just over one-half of women had been using contraceptives when they became pregnant, and this lack of an association holds up after controlling for other factors. Adolescent women obtaining repeat abortion are, in fact, slightly more likely than first-time abortion patients to have become pregnant while using a hormonal method.

This suggests that women who have repeat abortion are not using abortion as a form of birth control any more than women who have a single abortion.

Your comment indicated that you should expect that women who have had one abortion should have increased rates of birth control use. The statistic I found doesn't really speak to that, because it doesn't cover women who had a single abortion, remained sexually active, and did not have an unwanted pregnancy after that. It may be the case that large numbers of these women did in fact increase their birth control use.

Here are some other interesting correlations:

• women having repeat abortions are more likely than first-time abortion patients to have had prior births (76% vs. 47%), and many (19% vs. 8%) have had three or births
• Repeat abortions tend to cluster together. “Three-quarters of repeat abortions were reported to have occurred within five years of the prior procedure, including four in 10 within two years. Third and higher- order abortions appear to be even more closely spaced.” The authors speculate that this indicates “situational problems for some women in avoiding unintended pregnancy.”
• Women who have repeat abortion are also giving birth more often: “Women having repeat abortions are more likely than first-time abortion patients to have had prior births (76% vs. 47%), and more likely to have had many (19% vs. 8% have had three or more prior births).”

All of this points to the possibility that women who have repeat abortions are simply more fertile than other women. They aren't doing anything different. They just tend to get pregnant more often.