When did CDC start collecting abortion data?
CDC began abortion surveillance in 1969 to document the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions. CDC’s surveillance system counts legal induced abortions only.

How does CDC define abortion?
For surveillance purposes, legal abortion is defined as a procedure performed by a licensed physician or someone acting under the supervision of a licensed physician to induce the termination of a pregnancy.

Are states required to report their abortion statistics to CDC?
No, states and areas voluntarily report data to CDC for report preparation. CDC's Division of Reproductive Health prepares surveillance reports as data becomes available. There is no national requirement for data submission or reporting. For more detailed information, we recommend you review the CDC/NCHS document, Handbook on the Reporting of Induced Termination of Pregnancy.  (PDF–2.5MB) Source: NCHS.

How is the report prepared and formatted?
Preparing the Abortion Surveillance Reports is based on the data available from all states and areas that cooperate in reporting for a given calendar year. In addition, ample time is required to perform the analyses that produce the tables, charts, and the narrative describing trends and methods. Please view the abstract and methods portion of the most recent Abortion Surveillance Report for more information on compilation of the report.

Some states now report the use of medical abortions. These are abortion procedures using medications instead of surgery. Therefore, we adapted our system to include a separate category for medical abortions. The number of states and localities reporting this information is increasing each year. As we receive reliable data on medical abortion, we will provide it in the surveillance reports.

How is the Abortion Surveillance Report used?
We understand the report is used by many in the field of public health. Some have mentioned they use the report to—

• Identify characteristics of women who are at high risk of unintended pregnancy,
• Monitor trends in the number, ratio, and rate of abortions by state or region of the country,
• Compare trends in this nation with those of other countries.

For example, demographers use information in the report to calculate pregnancy rates, which are combined estimates of births and fetal loss. Managers of public health programs use this data to evaluate the programs' effectiveness to prevent unintended pregnancy. There have historically been other data uses; such as, the calculation of the mortality rate of specific abortion procedures. Policymakers and program planners also use these data to improve the health and well-being of women and infants. Surveillance systems such as this one continue to provide data necessary to examine trends in public health.

Can I obtain a public use dataset for my own analysis?
No public use dataset is available. To obtain data for this surveillance system, CDC assures states and areas that we will maintain strict confidentiality of data provided to us. For other data sources and estimates, we suggest using the MEDLINE/PubMed or MedlinePlus bibliographic reference services of the National Library of Medicine.

Why are there changes in the formatting of the 2006 report? Was this required by government or partners?

• The changes were based solely upon discussions among the co-authors to provide a more user-friendly report.
• Trends have now been reported based upon data from areas that consistently report to CDC. This avoids the problem of apparent changes that were caused solely by the inclusion or exclusion of particular reporting areas. Trends are now reported in the text, and in Tables 4, 6, 11 and 13.
• Another change that was made was to focus on the past decade. Formerly Table 1 presented information for all years CDC has reported data, but it was difficult to interpret trends from this table because different areas reported in different years. Table 1 now presents trends in abortion numbers, rates, and ratios among areas that have consistently reported since 1996. Trends in demographics (age, race and ethnicity are found in Table 4, 6, 11 and 13. Trends in gestational age and procedure type are found in the text.

Abortion Surveillance Reports
Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2006
In 2006, 846,181 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. This total presents a 3% increase from the 820,151 abortions reported for 2005. The abortion rate for 2006 was 16.1 legal induced abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years. This also represents a 3% increase from 2005. The abortion ratio was 236 legal induced abortions per 1,000 live births in 2006. This represents no change from 2005. During the previous decade (1997–2006), reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 5.7%, 8.8%, and 14.8%, respectively; most of these declines occurred before 2001. During the previous decade (1997–2006), women aged 20–29 years accounted for the majority of abortions (57%). Also a higher number of abortions were obtained by white women and unmarried women. The majority (62.0%) of abortions in 2006 were performed at ≤8 weeks' gestation. Source: MMWR 2009 58(SS08);1–35.

Previous MMWR Abortion Surveillance Reports
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995 | 1994–1993  1992 | 1991 | 1990 | 1989 | 1988 | 1987– 1986 | 1985–1984 | 1981  1980–1979

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Page last reviewed: 11/25/09
Page last modified: 11/25/09
Content source: Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion