41% of NYC pregnancies end in abortion

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Eye-opening statistics about the rate of abortions in New York City have been released by the Health Department.

It raises questions about the effectiveness of current birth control education.

41% of all New York City pregnancies end in abortion.

The rate for minorities is even higher.

Both sides say the high abortion percentage is a crisis.

"If 41% of New York babies are aborted, with the percentage even higher in the Bronx and among our African-American babies in the world, it is downright chilling," New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan said.

Broken down by race for 2009:

Specifically non-Hispanic Blacks have a 59.8% abortion rate.

Hispanics have a 41.3% abortion rate.

Asians have a 22.7% abortion rate.

And non-Hispanic Whites have a 20.4% abortion rate.

The fact that 41% of all pregnancies in New York City end in abortion is not a secret and it's not anything new.

In fact, things have been getting better over the past decade.

Back in 1998, 12 years ago, the number was actually 46%.

Planned Parenthood is also not happy about the numbers, but pushes education.

"We believe in comprehensive sex education, which by the way does include abstinence, but abstinence by itself has been proven to be ineffective,"

Archbishop Dolan reiterated the pro-abstinence, pro-life, anti-contraceptive position of the church.

"My word, what have we done the last 30 years. There's candy bowls on people's desks with condoms, they're dropping them from airplanes, yet nothing seems to improve, so they've been on the wrong track here," Archbishop Dolan said.

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new york city, women's health, baby, new york news, michelle charlesworth

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