Court cases related to abortion continue to make their way to the Supreme Court every few years, and the issue remains as divisive as ever across the nation. Here are resources both for statistics on abortion and general research that might be relevant for stories related to state legislation, court cases and local stories.
For overall statistics, the Guttmacher Institute has an extensive section on abortion, including laws, statistics, trends and research. They also enable you to customize and download a data set by region (world regions, countries, states and U.S. counties) and specific stats. They also keep a fact sheet on abortion that’s chock full of information—including incidence, demographics, gestational timing, types of abortion, safety, insurance coverage and law/policy—and regularly updated. They link to a study on the reasons women have abortions,
The CDC provides an overall section on reproductive health, abortion surveillance with summaries such as this MMWR one (Wikipedia actually provides a nice list of links to each year’s report.) Pew Research offers an in-depth look at public views on abortion as well as a quick look at the big picture with public opinion and knowledge. For trends, check out this study on incidence of and access to abortions through 2008.
Data on unintended pregnancy and contraception is available here, here and here at Journalist’s Resource. The partisan site Abort73 (opposing abortion) also provides a helpful list of stats with links, and Planned Parenthood has a quick fact sheet of their numbers.
If writing about a court case or proposed legislation, it’s helpful to be familiar with the major SCOTUS rulings on abortion linked here: Roe v. Wade, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Stenberg v. Carhart, Gonzales v. Carhart, and, most recently, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (full opinion here). An even more extensive list of rulings that includes lower courts (primarily state supreme courts and circuit courts) can be found here, though it’s a partisan site promoting the reversal of Roe. Pew Research offers an excellent overview of the history of abortion rulings in the US if you need a quick bone-up on the big picture (briefer version here). The Guttmacher Institute also gives a statistical overview of state laws related to abortion.