Abortion in Maryland - Statistics

The following information was released by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) in September 2006. DHMH has since stopped collecting abortion statistics. The data is for calendar year 2005.

The DHMH Report contains the following disclaimer:

"The State of Maryland has a voluntary abortion reporting system, so the data contained in this report are incomplete. The number of facilities submitting data can change from year to year, making comparisons over time unreliable. The quality of the date is uncertain because no independent verification has been done."

Notes on Table 1: Because the number of reporting facilities changes from year to year, the percent of change from year to year is relatively meaningless — it only indicates a change in the number of reported abortion, not a change in the actual number of abortions or the overall abortion rate.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Maryland had 41 abortion facilities in 2005.

The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 10,797 abortions took place in Maryland in 2005. However, CDC records only 716,496 “known” abortions in the U.S. in 2005. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, nearly 1.2 million abortions took place in the U.S. in 2005; 38,077 abortions took place in Maryland.

Notes on Table 2: *The “abortion rate” is the number of abortions per 1,000 live births.

Again, these statistics are incomplete, and therefore inaccurate. For instance, there are no abortions reported for Washington Co. However, Washington County does have an active abortion facility that, presumably, chooses not to report to the state.

Although these data are not useful for determining trends, they do show patterns that are cause for concern. For instance, the abortion rate among non-white women is considtently higher than that of white women. Abortion rates tend to be higher in areas with large urband concentrations. However, several Eastern Shore counties have disturbingly high abortion rates, even though the actual number of abortions is small. For instance, in Kent County, the number of abortions on non-white women in 2005 exceeded the number of live births to non-white mothers.

Maryland Abortion Statistics

• Table 1: Maryland Resident Abortions (including # of facilities reporting) – 2005
• Table 2: Maryland Resident Abortions, Births, & Abortion Rate, by County & Race – 2005
  
• Table 3: Maryland Resident Abortions, Births, & Abortion Rate in Women under Age 20, by County & Race – 2005
  
• Table 4: Number of Maryland Abortions by State of Residence – 2005
  
• Table 5: Maryland Reported Abortions by Maternal Age – 2005
• Table 6: Maryland Reported Abortions by Fetal Age – 2005
• Table 7: Maryland Reported Abortions by Method Used – 2005
  
• Table 8: Maryland Reported Abortions by Marital Status - 2005
  
• Table 9: Frequency of MD Abortions by Number of Living Prior Children – 2005
  
• Table 10: MD Reported Abortions with Frequency of Prior Abortions – 2005
  
• Table 11: MD Reported Abortions— Maternal Age by Race – 2005
  
• Table 12: MD Reported Abortions— Maternal Age by Fetal Age – 2005
• Table 13: MD Reported Abortions— Fetal Age by Race – 2005
  
• Table 14: MD Reported Abortions— Fetal Age by Method Used – 2005