In the ’70s, this image of the typical abortion patient (white, middle class) was largely accurate.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, women ages 18-19 accounted for 33 percent of the total abortions performed in 1974, with those in their early 20s made up another third. Fifty-four percent were childless, and 72 percent were unmarried. Data about the racial breakdown of abortion recipients in the early years after
Roe v. Wade is hard to come by; racial data only began being tracked in the 1980s. But extrapolating back, it’s clear that for most of the first decades after
Roe, a large majority of abortion patients were white.
Since then,
the demographics of abortion patients have changed dramatically. Women under 20 now account for only 18 percent of abortions. The percentage of women without children seeking an abortion has dropped to 39 percent, and non-Hispanic white women only account for 36 percent of abortion patients. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that women seeking abortion tend to be unmarried; around 85 percent of those seeking abortion aren’t married. While the discourse around abortion still focuses on scared white teenagers, the reality is that the typical abortion patient these days is a twenty-something single mother of color.
