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 service of the National Library of Medicine.

Abortion Surveillance Reports
Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2004 | View PDF 479KB
In 2004, 839,226 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. This total represents a 1.1 percent decrease from the 848,163 abortions reported for 2003. The abortion ratio for 2004 decreased since 2003. The ratio was 238 legal induced abortions per 1,000 live births in 2004. In 2004, the abortion rate was 16 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years of age, the same since 2000. For the same 47 reporting areas, the abortion rate remained relatively constant during 1998–2004. As in the past, a higher number of abortions were obtained by white women, unmarried women, and women under 25 years of age. More than half (61%) of the reported legal induced abortions were performed during the first 8 weeks of gestation; 88% were performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Source: MMWR 2007;56(SS-9);1–33.

Previous MMWR Abortion Surveillance Reports
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: 7/29/08
Page last modified: 1/22/08
Content source: Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion