<<<<<It also depends what you mean by "have to" get an abortion, or "reasons". My guess is that most women don't "have to" in the sense that many people would understand that phrasing: they are not thirteen years old, pregnant by incest or rape, sleeping on the sidewalk or mentally incapable of raising a child. I think by framing it as an unfortunate necessity, something people "have to" do, we're missing the experience of most people, and making it sound as if abortion is shameful and requires a "reason," some sort of extenuating circumstance. I don't think it should.>>>>>
***** Volume 24, No. 3, August 1998 Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries By Akinrinola Bankole, Susheela Singh and Taylor Haas. . .
Table 2. Percentage distribution of women who had an abortion, by main reason given for seeking abortion, various countries and years
Country Wants to Wants no Cannot and postpone (more) afford year childbearing children a baby
United 25.5 7.9 21.3 States, 1987–1988
Country Having Has relationship Too young; and a child problem or parent(s) year will partner does not or other(s)
disrupt want pregnancy object to
education pregnancy
or job
United 10.8 14.1 12.2 States, 1987-1988
Country Risk to Risk to Other Total and maternal fetal year health health
United 2.8 3.3 2.1 100.0 States 1987-1988
© copyright 1998, The Alan Guttmacher Institute.
<http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/2411798.html> *****
About 44.2% of American women who had abortions say they had them not because they "had to" due to ill health, dire poverty, etc. but because they wanted to, in order to postpone child-bearing, to have no (or no more) children, or to avoid disrupting their work or education.
21% of American women say that they had abortions because they could not afford a baby. It would be interesting if data about the incomes and wealth of women who chose this answer were available.
In Finland, in contrast to the United States, 85.5% of women who had abortions say they had them because "[h]aving a child will disrupt education or job."
Yoshie