According to the Illinois Public Health Department, in 2003, some 42,000 abortions were performed in the Midwestern state, marking the lowest number of annual abortions in thirty years.
The data also shows a 10 percent drop compared to the number of abortion in the year 2002, which is 46, 945. The lowest number of abortion in Illinois was recorded in 1973 with 32,760. The highest number occurred in 1977, with 71,326 performed.
Libby Gray, director of the Illinois-based Project Reality, an abstinence organization, commented, “public health officials credited abstinence training in the state as contributing to that decline. So it's wonderful to hear abortions are also at a record low."
Gray indicated that there are about 29 active abstinence education programs in the state of Illinois at present time. One of these is True Love Waits.
Participants of True Love Waits are usually required to sign the commitment card which reads “Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.”
Most women who obtained abortions in Illinois, as in most states, were unmarried.
