On February 24, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued their report for the number of abortions in 2007. According to their findings, the abortion rate dropped to its second lowest level in ten years. This would be great news, if the report was complete.
California, New Hampshire, and Wyoming have not accurately reported their abortion totals for many years. Maryland is not incorporated into the 2007 account at all. The CDC report, and its statistical comparisons, is deeply flawed without reports form these four states, especially since California is the most populated state.
The CDC states in their report that “this report is based on abortion data for 2007 that were provided voluntarily to the CDC by the central health agencies of 49 reporting areas.” (emphasis added) The 2007 report shows that 827,609 abortions were done in 2007, a decline of about 2 percent from the 852,385 abortions that took place in 2006.
Here are some interesting excerpts from the report:
► Women between the ages of 20-29 were the most likely to obtain an abortion, accounting for 56.9% of all abortions.
► The adolescent rate of abortions is truly sad. The CDC defines adolescents as those 19 years or younger. In the group, 18-19 year olds have 62.3% of all abortions and the overall adolescent abortion rate is 337 abortions per 1,000 live births.
► 62.3% of abortions were performed on eight week old or younger babies and 91.5% were performed on babies 13 weeks and younger.
► Of the 37 areas that reported race in 2007, white women (including Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women) had the highest abortion rate with 55.9% of abortions. Black women had 36.5% of abortions. According the CDC, “black women had higher abortion rates and ratios than white women and women of other races.” Black women had 480 abortions for every 1,000 live births.
► 83.7% of women obtaining an abortion were unmarried.
► CDC identified six deaths for 2006 that were related to abortion. The deaths were identified by an indication of abortion on the death certificate or by findings from a health-care provider or agency. The six abortions were related to legal induced abortions and none to illegal abortions.
The CDC completely acknowledges the limited accuracy of its reporting:
“Because reporting requirements are established by the individual reporting areas, the collection of data varies, and CDC is unable to obtain the total number of abortions performed in the United States. During 1998-2007, the total annual number of abortions recorded by CDC was only 65%-69% of the number recorded by the Guttmacher Institute. […] Although most reporting areas collect and send abortion data to CDC, this information is given to CDC voluntarily; consequently, during 1998-2007, 45 of the 52 reporting areas provided CDC data on a consistent annual basis, and CDC did not obtain any information from California, Maryland, or New Hampshire for 2007. […] Moreover, even in states that legally require medical providers to submit a report for all the abortions they perform, enforcement of this requirement varies, and thus several other reporting areas provide CDC with comparatively incomplete numbers.” (emphasis added)
Nearly one-fifth of all pregnancies in the United States end in abortion. When will we have accurate reporting techniques so everyone can see how many lives are lost each year? How many more children will have to die before the world sees the truth?
For the full CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6001a1.htm?s_cid=ss6001a1_e&source=govdelivery#Fig1
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/02/24/cdc-abortions-declined-in-2007-black-women-have-highest-rate/
