Reproductive Health

CDC’s Abortion Surveillance System FAQs

When did CDC start conducting abortion surveillance?

CDC began abortion surveillance in 1969 to document the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions. Many states conduct abortion surveillance. CDC compiles the information that states collect to produce national estimates. CDC’s surveillance system compiles information on legal induced abortions only.

How does CDC define abortion?

For the purpose of surveillance, a legal induced abortion is defined as an intervention performed by a licensed clinician (e.g., a physician, nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant) that is intended to terminate an ongoing pregnancy.

Many states now report the use of medical and surgical abortion. Medical abortions are legal procedures that use medications instead of surgery. The number of states and localities reporting the use of medical abortion is increasing each year.

Are states required to report their abortion statistics to CDC?

No, states and areas voluntarily report data to CDC for inclusion in its annual Abortion Surveillance Report. CDC's Division of Reproductive Health prepares surveillance reports as data becomes available. There is no national requirement for data submission or reporting.

States needing guidance on abortion surveillance may contact CDC at cdcinfo@cdc.gov.

How is the report prepared and formatted?

Preparing the Abortion Surveillance Reports is based on the data available from all states and areas (New York City and the District of Columbia) that voluntarily report in a given calendar year. In addition, after CDC receives the data some additional time is required to perform the analyses that produce the tables, charts, and the narrative describing methods and trends. Please view the abstract and methods portion of the most recent Abortion Surveillance Report for more information on compilation of the report.

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.
Evaluate the effectiveness of programs for reducing teen pregnancies and unintended pregnancies among women of all ages.
Calculate pregnancy rates, based on the number of pregnancies ending in abortion, in conjunction with birth data and pregnancy loss estimates.
Monitor changes in clinical practice patterns related to abortion, such as changes in the types of procedures used, and weeks of gestation at the time of abortion.

There have historically been other data uses, such as the calculation of the mortality rate of specific abortion procedures. Surveillance systems, such as this one, continue to provide data necessary to examine trends in public health.

Are data available for my own analysis?

In addition to the data available in the annual Abortion Surveillance Report, data also are available for abortions distributed by state of maternal residence and state of clinical service. No additional data are available for public use. Search the National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE/PubMed or MedlinePlus bibliographic reference for other abortion data.

Abortions Distributed by State of Maternal Residence and State of Clinical Service
Download files: [XLS - 68K] | [CSV - 11KB

Abortion Surveillance— Findings and Reports

Abortion Surveillance 2008
In 2008, 825,564 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. This represents essentially no change from the number of abortions reported in 2007. The abortion rate for 2008 was 16.0 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years. This also is unchanged from 2007. The abortion ratio was 234 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2008. This is a 1% increase from 2007.

From 1999 to 2008, the reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 3%, 4%, and 10%, respectively. From 1999 to 2008, women aged 20–29 years accounted for the majority of abortions. The majority of abortions in 2008 took place early in gestation: 91.4% of abortions were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation, and of the abortions performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation, 68.7% were performed at ≤ 8 weeks’ gestation. In 2008, 14.6% of all abortions were medical abortions. Source: MMWR 2011;60(No. 15).