Background
For the last four decades, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has partnered with the states to collect aggregate statistics on abortions in the United States. States are not required to submit abortion data to the CDC, but the overwhelming majority do. To collect individual-level data, most state vital statistics agencies have designed a form that abortion providers use for reporting to the state. Typically, the form requires:
- identification of the facility at which the abortion was performed and the physician performing the procedure;
- patient’s demographic characteristics (e.g., age, race, ethnicity, marital status and number of previous live births);
- gestational age; and
- abortion procedure used.
After the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the abortion drug mifepristone in 2000, most states adjusted their forms to include questions about medication (nonsurgical) abortion. More recently, states have reconfigured their systems so that reporting is increasingly being done via the Internet.
Visit our state legislation tracker for policy activity on all sexual and reproductive health topics.
Highlights
- 46 states and the District of Columbia require hospitals, facilities and physicians providing abortions to submit regular and confidential reports to the state.
- 8 states require providers to indicate the method of payment, such as insurance or self-pay, for the procedure.
- 28 states require providers to report postabortion complications.
- 16 states require providers to give some information about the woman's reason for seeking the procedure.
- 10 states ask whether the abortion was performed because of a threat to the woman's health or life.
- 7 states ask whether the abortion was performed because of rape or incest.
- 15 states ask whether the abortion was performed because of a diagnosed fetal abnormality.
- 9 states ask whether the abortion was performed for other reasons (e.g. the woman's economic or familial circumstances).
- 6 states require providers to report whether the fetus was viable.
- 14 states require providers to indicate if the state mandates for abortion counseling and parental involvement were satisfied.
- 9 states require providers to report whether state-mandated counseling was provided.
- 14 states require providers to report whether state requirements for parental involvement were met.
For more information
Topic
United States
Geography
- United States: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming