A statistic I’ve heard thrown around, and I’ve hesitated to mention, regarding abortion was that the number of abortions had risen under Republican presidents and gone down under Democratic presidents.

I finally remembered it and thought to look it up, and found the oh so reliable FactCheck.org had put together a clear answer for me:

A number of politicians and organizations have been circulating an interesting and surprising idea: that abortions have gone up under George W. Bush’s watch.  The claim is repeated by supporters of abortion rights as evidence that Bush’s anti-abortion policies have backfired, or at least been ineffective. 

But the claim is untrue. In fact, according to the respected Alan Guttmacher Institute, a 20-year decline in abortion rates continued after Bush took office, as shown in this graph

    

Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute, “Trends in Abortion in the United States “

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