Abortion Rates Higher for Religious Women

I have actually studied the abortion and religion link for years, and it is not just one study, but many studies that show the vast majority of women having abortions are religious women. One or two women have written to me, disagreeing with this statistic. They feel that mostly atheists must get abortions. If we take this step by step, it is easier to determine where the disconnect is.

First, women who are on birth control generally do not get pregnant. They are actively preventing their pregnancies. Women who are NOT on birth control are the ones who tend to get pregnant. Do we agree on this part? So the larger percentage of women going in to get an abortion would be women who were not on birth control. Yes, a tiny percentage of women use birth control and have it fail for some resaon. But this percentage is very tiny compared to the women who get pregnant because they're not using any birth control.

People who are not on birth control tend to fall into two categories. First, teens who are afraid to get it for some reason. Second, women who have religious issues with birth control. Now, the teen group has been whittling down over the years as doctors are more likely to give birth control to sexually active teens. Back in the 1970s, birth control was *only* for married women!! Not even unmarried adults were given birth control. So it has been a long, slow process - but over time doctors and society have become more lenient about who has access to birth control. Also, birth control has become more safe over time. So for a large variety of reasons, a larger and larger percentage of sexually active women (non-married) has had access to birth control and the number of women who "can't" get it if they want it has shrunk. So do we agree on this point?

That means the group which remains at the same size is the group of women who COULD get birth control (and for whom it would be easier and easier to do so) but who *chooses* not to get birth control, for religious reasons.

So before we go any further, do we agree on these issues? I can easily start posting links to studies for all of these situations, but I imagine these are all common sense for us, and I don't want to fill this post with links where they are unnecessary. Let me know if you do not agree on this top section, and why.