Fewer than half use *any* kind of birth control, and probably a large number of those who claim to have been using it at the time they got pregnant were lying because they did not want to admit that they just didn’t want to bother with birth control.
Of all the people I know about who have had abortions, not a single one, ever, volunteered the fact that she got pregnant despite the use of birth control. However, every single one quickly volunteered any number of excuses for having the abortion—every one of which would have been a valid reason to prevent the pregancy in the first place, although they are flimsy excuses for killing a baby. Those two facts together tell me that not a single one of them bothered using contraceptives of any sort.
More than half of all abortions are on repeat customers. That, too, is an indicator that those having the abortions were doing so because they did not bother with contraceptives, not that contraceptives failed.
To me, accepting the premise that most abortions are just cleaning up accidents that happened despite the abortive mother’s best efforts just provides cover for irresponsible behavior. The abortion industry has a strong incentive to promote the idea that women having abortions were raped or their contraceptives failed, because both of those scenarios absolve the woman of guilt and excuse her irresponsible behavior. IMO, we need to keep the stigma level high, and not accept the self-serving lies and excuses.
• Fifty-one percent of women who have abortions used a contraceptive method in the month they got pregnant, most commonly condoms (27%) or a hormonal method (17%).
• About 61% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.
That's why SEICUS/PP/Big Birth Controls want to get all women from 15 - 45 on a long-lasting hormonal method of birth control (not somethinbg tht requires daily dosing, like the Pill, but somethng that lasts 3 months, 6 months or more like the patch, the injection and the inserts) --- because all the oth ermethods have such a high failure rate.
Ultimately, they want the women spayed.
People who have decided to use a contraceptive have already decided sex is supposed to be child-free. When they get pregnant, they feel affronted ("I did the responsible thing and then THIS THING happened to me! How can that be??! I wuz cheated! I wuz robbed! Unfair!") and this feeling of false victimhood makes them feel justified in using the back-up, abortion.
Often as not.