Unmarried, non-white women in their 20s are having most abortions

Based on the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute's 2026 report along with other data, non-white, unmarried women in their 20s with at least one previous birth are still obtaining the majority of abortions in the U.S.

The report also shows that in 2025, an estimated 11,000+ abortions took place at 21 weeks or later. Babies have survived when born as young as 21 weeks gestation (19 weeks post-fertilization).

Key Takeaways:

Based on Guttmacher, CDC, and additional sources, Live Action News reports and/or estimates that:

• Women in their 20s had 61% of abortions.

• Women with one or more live births had 55% of abortions.

• Women who never had a previous abortion accounted for 56% of abortions.

• Unmarried women accounted for nearly 88% of abortions.

• Non-white women had 70% of abortions; Black women had nearly 40%.

• Ninety-three percent of (93%) of abortions were committed at 13 weeks or earlier (first trimester).

• The abortion pill now accounts for 65% of all abortions, up from 63%.

Abortion Data:

In March of 2026, Guttmacher updated its abortion estimates for 2025 to 1,126,000 abortions, but the former "special affiliate" of Planned Parenthood specified that this was an underestimation due to some exclusions, and was "an increase of 21% from 2020, the last year of comprehensive national estimates before Dobbs."

The 2025 totals reflect nearly 3,085 preborn babies aborted per day, 21,654 per week, and nearly 94,000 per month.

Guttmacher noted:

The abortion rate in 2025 was 16.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44. This is the same as the rate for 2024, a 5% increase from 2023 (when the abortion rate was 15.9), and a 16% increase from the 2020 rate.

The highest abortion rate (29.3) was seen from 1980-1981, and the lowest rate (13.5) was seen in 2017, just as the United States faced the end of a long-term decline in abortions.

Abortion pill

Guttmacher updated its previous 63% figure and now suggests the abortion pill makes up 65% of all abortions, writing:

In 2023, medication abortion accounted for 65% of all clinician-provided abortions in the United States; by contrast, this method accounted for 53% of abortions in 2020.

At the state level, medication abortion accounted for the majority of abortions in nearly all US states without a total ban, ranging from 44% in Washington, DC and 46% in Ohio to 84% in Montana and 95% in Wyoming. These estimates do not include self-managed abortions.

In 2025, there were an estimated 731,900 or more abortions by pill, which translates to 60,992 abortions by pill per month; 2,005 per day; 84 per hour; and one every 44 seconds.

Abortion Client Facts:

Guttmacher wrote that "the most recent data on the characteristics of people having clinician-provided abortions" was from June 2021-July 2022. These people "represent [those] obtaining abortions in the year prior to the Dobbs decision." For subsequent years, this data may be different.

Live Action News previously published data on abortion client characteristics which remained largely unchanged and is based in many instances on reports filed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has yet to update its data from 2022 numbers.

The numbers below use Guttmacher, CDC, and additional sources in order to provide estimates.

Women in their 20s: 61% of abortions

Breakdown -

• Ages 20–24: 33%

• Ages 25-29: 28%

Other -

• Women in their 30s: 27%

• Adolescents: 10%

• Women in their 40s: 3%

• 17 or younger: 2%

Women who had one or more live births: 55% of abortions

"Approximately 55% of people who obtained an abortion had previously had at least one birth," Guttmacher reported March 2026.

However, the Guttmacher Institute’s 2021–2022 Abortion Patient Survey (APS) claimed that 58% of women sampled indicated it was their first abortion.

According to the APS survey:

The overwhelming majority of adolescents aged 15–17 were obtaining a first abortion...

This proportion decreased with age and then leveled off, with similar proportions of individuals in their 30s and 40s reporting that they were obtaining their first abortion (41%–43%).

Women who never had a previous abortion: 56% of abortions

In 2022, the CDC calculated that out of 41 reporting areas, 56.1% (down slightly from 57.3% in 2021) had never had a previous abortion.

But nearly 44%  (43.8%) of women acknowledged that they had previously committed at least one or more abortions in 2022:

• One previous abortion: 24.7%

• Two previous abortions: 10.9%

• Three or more previous abortions: 8.2%

Unmarried women: Nearly 88% of abortions

While Guttmacher does not track characteristics by marital status, in 2022 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that just 12.3% of women who obtained an abortion were married, while 87.7% were unmarried.

Married women saw an abortion ratio of 37 abortions per 1,000 live births, while single unmarried women had 376 abortions per 1,000 live births.

Updated CDC data has not yet been published but is expected to be released soon.

Non-white women: 70% of abortions; Black women: Nearly 40%

In 2022, CDC data revealed a disproportionate number of abortions among minority populations:

• Black Americans made up 11.7% of people living in the U.S. but black women accounted for 39.5% of abortions. 

• White Americans made up 57.7% of people living in the U.S. but white women accounted for 31.9% of abortions. 

• Hispanic Americans made up 19.2% of people living in the U.S. but Hispanic women accounted for 21.2% of abortions. 

However, in March 2026, Guttmacher data showed that the majority (70%) of people obtaining abortions remained non-white:

• Black (29%)

• Latinx (30%)

• Asian (4%) and

• Another race or ethnicity (7%)

Nearly 60% of women having abortions were above poverty level

In March 2026, Guttmacher reported that 41% of women obtaining abortions had an income below the federal poverty level (FPL) and 30% had incomes between 100% and 199% of the FPL.

While most "individuals who obtained abortion care in 2021–2022 had some form of health insurance [78%]," Guttmacher noted that "More than half (53%) of people paid out of pocket for their abortion in 2021–2022."

Yet, Guttmacher also found that...

Medicaid was the second most common method of payment and was used by 30% of people obtaining abortions. Thirteen percent of people used private insurance to pay for abortion care, and 15% relied on financial assistance (such as donations from abortion funds) to pay for some or all of the cost of their care.

Ironically, findings from the APS showed that, of abortion clients 17 or younger (which in many instances should be investigated for child sexual abuse), almost 60% used Medicaid to fun their abortions.

Within Medicaid states, reliance on this method of payment by age group was highest among respondents aged 25–29 (66%), though only abortion patients aged 35 and older were significantly less likely to pay with Medicaid. Use of Medicaid was also higher among abortion patients who identified as Black (70%) or Latinx(66%), had one or more prior births (70%–77%), those having second-trimester abortions (75%) and those with the lowest incomes (78%).

The Hyde Amendment — credited with saving millions of lives — stands in the way of unfettered taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, and it should stay that way, because when taxpayers fund abortion, abortions increase.

Abortion Victim Facts:

Guttmacher selected gestational data about aborted babies from reports made to the CDC, writing:

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2022:

40% of abortions were obtained at six weeks’ gestation or earlier,

53% at 7–13 weeks’ gestation, and

7% at 14 weeks’ gestation or later.

In the image below, Guttmacher breaks down the data in more detail based on abortion data reported to the CDC in 2022 (published in 2024). The data does not break down by trimesters specifically; though the abortion pill is approved though 10 weeks of pregnancy, it is being prescribed into the second and third trimester as well.

Using abortion estimates for 2025 (1,126,000 abortions), we estimate the following totals by weeks:

• 6 weeks or earlier: 40% (down from 44.8% previously reported) - 450,400

• 7-9 weeks: 38% (up from 36%) - 427,880

• 9 weeks or earlier: 79% (down from 81% reported previously) - 889, 540

• 13 weeks or earlier: 93% of abortions - 1,047,180

• 10-13 weeks: 14% (up from 12.7%) - 157,640

• 14-15 weeks: 3% - 33,780

• 16-18 weeks: 2% (down from 3%) - 22,520

• 18-20 weeks: 2% - 22,520

• 21 weeks or greater: 1% - 11,260

While the majority of abortions (over one million) occurred in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, over 90K abortions took place after 14 weeks, with over 11K of those committed at 21 weeks or greater.

Neither the CDC nor Guttmacher breaks down abortions committed in the third trimester when they are extremely dangerous to commit outside a hospital setting.

The Bottom Line:

Ultimately, while brick-and-mortar abortion businesses are decreasing, the use of the abortion pill increases, and more lives are lost. Virtual/online abortion pill businesses tragically saw an uptick in abortions based on Guttmacher's figures, with 24% of clinician abortions compared to 20% in 2024 and 12% in 2023 — a rapid expansion of chemical abortion business in a short period of time.

But there's good news, too:

• While 37 states plus D.C. saw an increase of eight abortion clinics compared to 2020 (1% increase), the "13 states with total abortion bans" had no brick-and-mortar abortion businesses — a significant drop from 62 in 2020.

• Guttmacher's March 2026 report claimed that at the end of 2025, 753 brick-and-mortar abortion businesses were in operation. This is a 2% decline from March 2024 (765) and a 7% decline from 807 in 2020.

In addition, pro-life pregnancy help centers (2,775) now outnumber brick-and-mortar abortion facilities by nearly 4 to 1.