The U.S. abortion rate remained essentially stable in 1981 and 1982, after rising each year between 1973 and 1980. The increases had been due to widening availability of abortion services and rising unintended pregnancy rates caused by several factors, among them a shift from use of the pill and the IUD to use of less effective methods. The stabilization of the abortion rate since 1980 is the culmination of a pattern of smaller annual increases in the rate in previous years. There were 1.57 million legal abortions reported in the United States in 1982. About three percent of U.S. women of reproductive age obtained an abortion, and about 26 percent of all pregnancies were terminated by abortion during that year. There are still wide gaps in the geographic availability of abortion services. Seventy-eight percent of all U.S. counties--containing 28 percent of women aged 15-44--had no identified provider of abortion services in 1982. Only two percent of abortions were performed in nonmetropolitan counties in that year, although 26 percent of women of reproductive age live in such counties. Fully 87 percent of nonmetropolitan counties had no abortion providers at all in 1982. Despite the concentration of abortion services in urban areas, 47 percent of metropolitan counties also had no abortion service providers in 1982. Abortion services are most available, and rates are highest, in states on the East and West coasts. In 1982, 82 percent of abortions were performed in nonhospital facilities: 56 percent in clinics which specialize in abortion services, 21 percent in other kinds of clinics and five percent in physicians' offices.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)