Trends in rates of live births and abortions following state restrictions on public funding of abortion.

Abortion rates rose following the expanded legalization of abortion by the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. As a result, the impact of the restriction on Federal funding of abortions under the Hyde Amendment in 1977 was not clear. However, abortion rates had plateaued by 1985, when State funding of Medicaid abortions was restricted in Colorado, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Analysis of statewide data from the three States indicated that following restrictions on State funding of abortions, the proportion of reported pregnancies resulting in births, rather than in abortions, increased in all three States. In 1985, the first year of State restrictions on the use of public funds for abortion, Colorado, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania recorded 1.9 to 2.4 percent increases in the proportion of reported pregnancies resulting in live births, after years of declining rates. With adjustments for underreporting of abortion, there was an overall 1.2 percent rise in the proportion of pregnancies resulting in live births in those States. Nationally the proportion rose only 0.4 percent. By 1987, the three States had experienced increases above 1984 levels of 1.6 to 5.9 percent in the proportion of reported pregnancies resulting in live births. The experiences of the three States can be used in projecting an expected increase in the proportions of reported pregnancies resulting in live births, rather than in abortions, for similar States. A projection for California, for example, showed that an increase could be expected in the first year of restrictions on the use of public funds for abortion of at least 4,000 births, which could be expected largely to affect women of low income.