Spinning the abortion stats

Here's an interesting analysis of a report that tried to make it seem like abortion is relatively rare in the United States:

Interestingly, one statistic that Rosenthal fails to mention is the abortion ratio, which is the number of abortions per thousand live births. According to the CDC, the abortion ratio in 2008 was around 234 abortions for every thousand live births. However, the ratio is significantly higher in many parts of the country. A recent analysis by the Chiaroscuro Foundation found that, in New York City, 41 percent of all pregnancies, except those that ended in miscarriage, ended in abortion. This is a much higher percentage than many realize, as evidenced by the considerable amount of attention the Chiaroscuro analysis received from media outlets both in New York and across the country.
After spending an entire blog post poring over abortion statistics, Rosenthal decides at the end of the day, it does not matter. Why? Well according to Rosenthal, even if abortion is outlawed, the abortion rate will not go down. Rosenthal claims the abortion rate was about the same before the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 as it is today. Here Rosenthal is blinded by ideology. The number of legal abortions literally doubled between 1973 and 1979 and there is a significant academic literature detailing how easier access to abortion changed the sexual mores and sexual behavior of young people.
Rosenthal also claims that half of all maternal deaths in the first half of the 20th century were due to illegal abortions. However, he fails to mention that the main factor which led to the decline in maternal deaths was widespread use of penicillin, not widespread access to abortion.