Abortion isn’t generally a subject that inspires many hip-hip-hoorays, but a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has some encouraging news: the U.S. abortion rate fell 5 percent in 2009, the largest single-year drop in a decade. While abortion rights supporters may worry that the declining abortion rate is partly a result of increased abortion restrictions and access at the state level, the trend matches a similar decline in pregnancies overall. In fact, the teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. is at its lowest level in 40 years, a consequence of American teenagers having less sex and being more likely to use contraception when they do.

This should be welcome news for those who oppose abortion and for those who want women to have more control over their reproductive abilities (and for the millions of Americans who fall into both camps). So you might think that abortion opponents would be thrilled about this latest news. You would be wrong.

That isn’t to say that anti-abortion activists are upset about the falling abortion rate. But many are shoving that headline aside to focus on what they say is the real story in the CDC report—the fact that deaths from abortions have doubled. (The data on abortions that the CDC analyzed is from 2008-2009, the most recent period for which statistics are available.) That sounds alarming, and certainly even one death would be tragic. But abortion-related deaths rose from six to twelve between 2007 and 2009. Not 12 percent, but twelve women. That's an increase of 0.0005 percentage points.

I don't want to minimize any of those deaths or suggest that more work couldn't be done to prevent them. But I have to scratch my head over the message Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest draws from the CDC report: “We have to ask why the abortion-related deaths of twelve women are buried in the very last table of the report and unremarked on in the news. The news from this report is that abortion harms women, as well as their babies.” (emphasis mine.) Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, also highlighted abortion-related deaths in a tweet on the CDC report.

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