“Pro-life” free market fundamentalists sure do make it hard to save unborn lives…

Washington Post:  “The proportion of poor women getting abortions has jumped sharply, according to a new report….There are likely a variety of reasons for the increase, but at least part of it is due to the recession pushing more women into poverty, the researchers say. Between 2000 and 2008, the proportion of women in the overall population who were poor increased 25 percent.”

More details and analysis from Pro-life Democrat Robert Hay:

“The Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, released a new study this week analyzing the trends in types of women seeking abortions nationwide.  Their most shocking discovery is that the only category of women that has seen an increase is “poor women”. 

Over an eight year period, the number of poor women seeking an abortion went from 27% in 2000 to 42% in 2008.  Put another way, now two out of every five women having an abortion are under the federal poverty level.  The report did not note whether this number would continue to rise due to a bad economy.

Other numbers remained consistent with the Institute’s previous studies.  The mostly likely women to obtain an abortion were those in their 20s or 30s with children already.  The most overrepresented groups to have abortions, based on population percentages, were women in their twenties, cohabiting, black or poor.  In a number key to the health care debate, only 12% of respondents said they paid for their abortion with private health insurance, while 57% paid out-of-pocket. 

Statistics like this show the importance of Democrats for Life’s 95-10 Initiative, partly contained in the recently passed health care bill.  Finances are increasingly a major reason women procure abortions and for many of them, they have no financial choice but to do otherwise.”