Statistics
Abortion statistics showed that the abortion rate (the number of cases of induced abortions per 1,000 women per year) increased for women younger than 20 from 1975 to 1995. The abortion ratio (number of cases per 1,000 live births) remained the highest amongst women aged 40–44. An increase in the abortion ratio was seen in the two youngest groups (younger than 20 and 20-24), especially among those who were born after 1955. The proportion of abortions that were experienced by women younger than 25 increased from 18 percent between 1976 and 1980 to 30 percent between 1991 and 1995, and a slight increase was also observed among women aged 40–44.
Overall, in 1995 the total number of abortions reported was 343,024, representing a 49 percent decrease from the number reported for 1975. The overall abortion rate changed from 22 to 11 abortions per 1,000 women in 1975 and 1995, respectively; and the overall abortion ratio changed from 353 to 289 abortions per 1,000 live births in the same 20-year period. In more than 99 percent of cases, the reason reported for performing an abortion was to protect the woman’s health; this percentage remained constant during 1975-95.
The official Japanese government statistics on abortion however can not be considered as very accurate since physicians tend to underreport the number of abortions they perform as a way of avoiding income tax payments (Coleman 1991) and because of social pressures to protect women’s confidentiality, especially that of young women who are junior high or high school students.
Read more about this topic: Abortion In Japan
Famous quotes containing the word statistics:
“We ask for no statistics of the killed,
For nothing political impinges on
This single casualty, or all those gone,
Missing or healing, sinking or dispersed,
Hundreds of thousands counted, millions lost.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“and Olaf, too
preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me: more blond than you.”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)
“July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)