Actually, the abortion rate has decreased. I think you both are missing the point, however. The moral arguments for and against abortion will not change, but the less abortions that take place, and the less women that are affected by it, the less significant it will become in political discourse. A common anti-abortion talking point is, "There are X amount of abortions performed each year, X performed each month, X performed each day," etc., etc. If current trends hold up, abortion will become so rare that not even hardline social conservatives will see much point in banning it. There will always be a pro-choice camp. There will always be an anti-abortion camp. But, the debate will become far less amplified as time goes on.
Even if the trend over the last twenty years continues, there will still be over half a million abortions being done each year in 2050. Frankly, I'm skeptical that the trend would continue unchanged, but even if it did, half a million a year is more than enough to energize the debate. I certainly have not seen any slackening of the issue over the last twenty years. Indeed, if anything, it's gotten more shrill.
The number of abortions performed per year peaked at about 1.4 million in 1990 and was as low as 765k in 2010. So if current trends continue with abortions halving every 20-25 years, at what point is this less amplified debate start happening?
The CDC numbers for 1990 and 2010 aren't strictly comparable since several states—including California—no longer report numbers of abortions and thus aren't included in the CDC totals for 2010. The decline over those twenty years was more like 30% than 50%.
