1. In 1973, the year Roe v. Wade was decided, 63 percent of all abortions occurred within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Today, 88 percent of all abortions occur in the first 10 weeks. Grimes, Second Trimester Abortions in the United States, 16 Family Planning Perspectives 260 (1984).
2. Henshaw, Binkin, Blaine, and Smith, A Portrait of American Women Who Obtain Abortions, 17 Family Planning Perspectives 90, 91 (1985). One study suggests that even the 0.01 percent figure may be too high. Staff from the Centers for Disease Control investigated all abortions reported as occurring during the third trimester in the state of Georgia from 1979 and 1980. Of the 78 with adequate data, only three had been classified correctly. Two of those involved anencephalic fetuses. Correction of the misclassified reports would reduce the rate of post-24-week abortions in Georgia to 0.004 percent. Spitz, Lee, Grimes, Schoenbucher, and Lavorie, Third Trimester Induced Abortion in Georgia, 1979 and 1980, 73 American Journal of Public Health 594 (May 1983).
3. Presentation to the working group of the Project on Reproductive Laws for the 1990s, March 18, 1986.
4. In 1977, 455,000 cesarean sections were performed in the United States, or approximately 13 percent of all deliveries. Marieskind, An Evaluation of Caesarean Section in the United States, Dept. Health, Education and Welfare (1979), Table 1 at 13.
5. See generally references cited in Janet Gallagher’s position paper, “Fetus as Patient,” in this book.