Topeka ? Fewer Kansas women had abortions last year in the state than in any year since 1991, the state Department of Health and Environment said in an annual report.

Both sides in the abortion debate claimed credit Monday for the numbers, which have shown the number of Kansas residents receiving abortions in the state declining steadily since 1996.

Overall, there were 11,697 abortions performed in the state last year, 147 fewer than in 2002, the agency said.

Kansas residents accounted for 6,163, or 52.7 percent, of last year’s total, down 135 from the previous year. The 2003 figure for Kansans was the lowest since 1991, when 6,070 Kansas residents had abortions in the state, KDHE said.

“I think there are probably three reasons those numbers are going down: emergency contraception, comprehensive sexuality education and teens delaying their first sexual encounters,” said Becki Brenner, vice president of clinical services for Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.

Women from other states accounted for 5,534, or 47.3 percent, of all abortions performed last year in Kansas, with most coming from Missouri, according to the report.

Abortions obtained in Kansas by girls age 15 through 19 from any state declined for a fourth straight year, to 2,005 in 2003.

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, said polls found younger people increasingly opposed to abortion.

“Maybe it’s because technology is there to show the humanity involved,” Culp said. “With sonograms, people are seeing pictures of their babies. The unborn child used to be considered just a piece of material. But now people can see with their own eyes that’s not the case.”

Brenner, of Planned Parenthood, said “more and more, the decisions that the young people are making are in relationship with their parents.”

Last year was the fourth in a row that Kansas had no instances of what opponents call “partial birth” abortion and what doctors call “intact dilation and extraction.”