All kinds of women, from diverse and varied backgrounds, experience unplanned pregnancy – including even anti-abortion women.

Only a minority are teenagers.
• Out of 40 countries with legal abortion, adolescents accounted for a smaller share of abortions than their share of the population. In North America, women aged 19 and under have 18% of abortions, while in Europe it’s only 11% overall.

• In Australia, about 90% of women contacting a Pregnancy Advisory Service at a women’s hospital over a 12-month period were aged 18–40+. Only 7.1% were under 18.

It’s women from all over the world
• Abortion is practiced widely by women everywhere, across all social classes, and regardless of laws against abortion.

• Women from every country, language group, religion, and socio-economic background seek abortion.

It’s both women who are already mothers and those who aren’t. 

• In a one-year period, approximately 50% of women who contacted the Pregnancy Advisory Service at a women’s hospital in Australia because of an unplanned pregnancy already had children.

• In the U.S. 59% of women having abortions are already mothers with at least one child.

• 45% of American women having abortions are married or cohabiting.

Sources:

“The only moral abortion is my abortion” (2000)

Royal Women’s Hospital, Victoria Australia – Abortion: the myths

Guttmacher Institute – Induced abortion in the U.S. (2017)

Guttmacher Institute – Induced abortion worldwide (2016)

Obstetrics & Gynecology – Changes in Abortion Rates Between 2000 and 2008 and Lifetime Incidence of Abortion (2011)