Anti-abortion activists protest outside of the US Supreme Court, during the March for Life in Washington. File photo/ AP

A new report shows that the number and rate of abortions across the US have plunged to their lowest levels since the procedure became legal nationwide in 1973.

The report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, counted 862,000 abortions in the US in 2017. That's down from 926,000 tallied in the group's previous report for 2014.

One reason for the decline is that fewer women are becoming pregnant. The Guttmacher Institute noted that the birth rate, as well as the abortion rate, declined during the years covered by the new report.

Guttmacher is the only entity that strives to count all abortions in the US, making inquiries of individual providers. Federal data excludes California, Maryland and New Hampshire.

Associated Press