The Chiaroscuro Foundation has released data on New York City’s high abortion rate by zip code. That data is depicted on a map at nyc41percent.com. The map will enable New York residents to find out what the abortion rate is in their neighborhoods, and we hope it will encourage them to consider getting involved in efforts to lower the rate at the local level.
The 2009 abortion data by zip code were obtained by the Chiaroscuro Foundation by means of a Freedom of Information request to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Included in the data released were statistics about the number of abortions, which were repeat abortions, and the number which were paid for by Medicaid. The number of repeat abortions is disturbingly high: 56% of abortions were not the woman’s first. Only 38%, however, were paid for by Medicaid.
Regular release of current data in this form could be a valuable tool for testing various interventions in efforts to lower the abortion rate in the city. Researchers could try to find correlations between, for instance, sex education programs in schools and abortion rates, or condom distribution rates and abortion rates. Since the high rate of abortion is a problem of such magnitude, affecting nearly 90,000 women a year in New York City, the modest investment in technology and staffing resources to make such data available should be considered seriously by the City.
While many of the details revealed by this more granular data are unsurprising, several things are worth noting. First, while the Bronx is the borough with the highest rate, none of the fifteen zip codes with the highest rates are in the Bronx. Instead, the Bronx has fewer extremes, with most zip codes high but not exceptionally high (that is, at least by NYC standards; a 50% abortion ratio is exceptionally high by any other standard.) Second, the zip code with the highest ratio, 10018 at 67.23%, is actually in Manhattan, though it may be a bit anomalous because of the very low number of births. The other Manhattan neighborhood in the top five is Greenwich Village/SoHo (10012) at 60.3%. Again, it isn’t clear why this neighborhood has such a high rate, but it is notably home to Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Center and the Margaret Sanger Way segment of Bleecker Street. This, I would suggest, argues against the myth that “access” to “reproductive services” will lower the abortion rate.
Many of the other very high zip codes are as expected: relatively poor minority neighborhoods. Since the abortion ratio is higher in minority communities, this is unsurprising. Among the lowest rates, there is not a zip code with less than 57% white residents according to 2010 census data, but there are several mostly white neighborhoods among the highest rates. Unfortunately, at this point we don’t have data by race by zip code, so it is hard to know what’s going on in that respect.
One characteristic that seems to track quite well on both ends, with several outliers in the high rate zip codes but none in the low rate zips, is the percentage of households headed by a female with no husband present. This seems to indicate that the abortion rate correlates with the out-of-wedlock birth rate, which makes sense since they are really both outcomes of the same situation: an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, usually unplanned. It also points to the idea that the changes to the sex and mating market brought about by the universal availability of contraception and abortion negatively affect women by breaking down the link between pregnancy and marriage. Helen Alvare and I have both written about the ineffectiveness of contraception as a social policy recently.
We hope that a focus on this kind of granular data over time will help us all to understand what make the abortion rate high in New York City and what can be done to bring it down. New Yorkers agree that the rate is too high. An empirical approach may help us come to agree on what can be done about it.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:00 pm
It should be pointed out that New York is not a particularly wicked city where women who, if only they lived somewhere else, would not have abortions. New York has a high concentration of the types of women who tend to have abortions: poor, black, single mothers, and so on. It’s my understanding that if you look at New Yorkers group by group, their abortion rates are not significantly different from the same groups in the country as a while. One of the reason for the city’s high abortion rate, for example, is the fact that New York has a higher proportion of black residents than any other major city. However, the abortion rate among black women in New York is not significantly higher than the abortion rate among black women in the country as a whole.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:43 pm
“56% of abortions were not the woman’s first.”
That to me is the key number. Why so many repeats? I can think of many answers but I beive that reducing repeats would be a very big first step.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:47 pm
David,
I kinda doubt that when you look at the breakdown by zip code. The zip code with the highest rate of abortions is one in Manhattan, the same zip code is shared by Redeemer, (Keller is currently featured on the ad banner touting the glories of a GCTS education at the top of this page as I type).
Kamilla
P.S. I also have it from a source I trust that one of the reasons Keller wasnt invited to the Chairoscurous press conference that kicked off this project was that the organizers DID NOT KNOW where Keller stands on abortion. Pretty sad indictment of the man, if you ask me.
September 8th, 2011 | 7:41 pm
“One of the reason for the city’s high abortion rate, for example, is the fact that New York has a higher proportion of black residents than any other major city.”
Where did you get this information from? My immediate reaction to this was, “That can’t possibly be right, but I’m willing to be surprised.”
A quick survey of “cities that seem to pentamom to have a lot of black residents” on Wikipedia indicates that NYC’s black population is about 25%. Baltimore, Washington, Atlanta, and Detroit all come in at over 50% — all but Atlanta over 60%, and Detroit is at 85%! Those are the first four that came to mind. I’m thinking that it’s quite possible that New York has the lowest proportion of black residents of any major American city other than Los Angeles, depending on how you define major city, but I could well be wrong about that.
Anyway, I don’t think that anyone’s ever claimed that the high abortion rate has no causal factors other than some inherent wickedness residing within the city limits, so I’m not sure what you’re protesting against, anyway.
September 8th, 2011 | 8:17 pm
David,
The zip code with the highest percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion (higher by nearly 7% in comparison to the next highest zip) is also listed as having a black population of <10%.
Want to try that one again?
Kamilla
September 8th, 2011 | 9:48 pm
Where did you get this information from? My immediate reaction to this was, “That can’t possibly be right, but I’m willing to be surprised.”
pentamom,
Sorry. My error. “According to the 2000 Census, New York City has the largest population of self-defined black residents of any U.S. city, with over 2 million within the city’s boundaries.” The largest population, not the largest proportion.
I can’t find a breakdown from the 2010 census, and I know things have changed by a couple of percentage points, but in 2010, New York City was 26.6% black and 27.0% Hispanic. Both blacks and Hispanics have a high abortion rate. Also, about 20% of New Yorkers are below the poverty level.
Yes, I do believe a big deal is made about the abortion rate in New York City (the “abortion capital of America”) and in many ways, rightly so. It is shocking. But given New York City’s demographics, it is, unfortunately, explicable.
Exactly what can be done, I don’t know.
September 9th, 2011 | 6:34 am
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September 9th, 2011 | 11:22 am
[...] More Stats on Abortion in NYC – More details are emerging about the number of abortions taking place in New York City (which currently ends half of all pregnancies in NYC) and it’s not good: “The number of repeat abortions is disturbingly high: 56% of abortions were not the woman’s first. Only 38%, however, were paid for by Medicaid.” [...]
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