Abstract

PIP: A demographer analyzed data on 44,862 15-57 year old married women living in 29 provinces, autonomous regions, and cities in China to determine the abortion rate and determinants of abortion. 24.51% of the women had experienced at least 1 abortion (mean number of abortions in this group, 1.41/woman). Overall, for every 100 live births 12.7 induced abortions occurred. The ratio for urban areas was more than 2 times that of rural areas (24.9% vs. 9.7%). Further, the abortion rate among urban women who had no live births stood at 8.2%, which was 3 times greater than that among rural women (2.4%). The highest urban ratios were in Shanghai (41.1%), Beijing (34.6%), Sichuan (28%), and Tianjin (27.3%). The highest ratios according to age group were among the 40-44 year olds in 1982 (66%) and 1985 (75%) and among 35-39 year olds in 1987 (81.5%). The lowest ratios were in the provinces of Gansu (5.1%) and Guizhou (5.6%). Induced abortion occurred in 26.1% of women using condoms (effectiveness 0.63%), 25.4% of those using natural family planning methods (safe period), 17.15% of those using oral contraceptives (effectiveness 0.67), and 8.5% of those using the IUD (effectiveness 0.71). Therefore, there was an inverse relationship between contraceptive effectiveness and abortion occurrence rate. Further, this rate increased with greater frequency of usage. For example, the rate for a single usage of IUD was 3.9%, but climbed to 29.9% for 2 usages, and 53.7% for 3 usages. Thus, family planning providers should not have a woman continue the same contraceptive with which she experienced failure and abortion. Increased contraceptive effectiveness can prevent more live births than no contraceptive (0.88 births at 95% effectiveness vs. 0.36). In conclusion, the leading cause of induced abortion in China was low contraceptive effectiveness.