By Tessa Redmond
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) – In January 2022, 354 lives were lost to abortion in Kentucky. It is the lowest January total reported since 2018, and a steep drop from the end of 2021, when 405 babies were aborted in December.
EMW Women’s Surgical Center, a privately-owned abortion provider, performed 297 abortions; Planned Parenthood in Louisville, the only other licensed abortion provider in Kentucky, performed 57.
January abortions were most commonly performed at 7- and 8-weeks gestation—at which point the embryonic heart has begun to beat, limbs and major organs are starting to form, and the brain is growing at an average rate of 250,000 neurons each minute, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Seventy-five abortions were performed before this point in pregnancy; the remaining 36% of pregnancy terminations happened at a later point in the unborn child’s development.
More than 200 abortions were performed on women who were already mothers, with only 138 women indicating they had not previously given birth to a child prior to their January abortion. While 26.6% had given birth once and 19.8% had given birth twice, nearly 15% of women seeking abortions had given birth to at least three children.
A slim majority of women had their first abortion in January, but nearly 47% had terminated at least one pregnancy before. One woman had 12 abortions prior to her January procedure.
Most pregnancies were ended using medication. Out of 151 surgical abortions, 135 utilized the suction curettage procedure to end pregnancies, and 16 babies were dismembered via dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortions.
Over 30 teenagers had abortions in January, one of whom was younger than 15 years old. Fifty-three women lived out of state. At least 50% of the women had a college education or graduate degree.
All data related to abortions provided in Kentucky are made available to the public through the Open Records Act.
Friends of Life KY 