At least 46 states require doctors to report abortions to the government, and dozens abortion clinics to provide detailed personal information on women who seek abortions. Most of the data has little to do with women’s health, and it’s unclear how states use the data, except as an intimidation tactic for women who seek abortions.
Collecting Data on Women Who Seek Abortions
Forty-six states require abortion reporting, but many go much further. Sixteen states require doctors to ask and report the person’s reason for seeking an abortion. Wyoming’s new abortion reporting law requires doctors to submit an individual report on each patient who seeks an abortion. The report must include data on the number of previous pregnancies, including prior abortions and miscarriages. Providers must also collect demographic information and measure and weigh the fetus (even though in very early abortions, there is no fetus to weigh). The state then releases the data in an annual report to the public.
Oklahoma’s reporting requirements are even more onerous. The form demands information about payment method, marital status, the reason for the abortion, the mother’s education and income, the name of the healthcare provider who referred the woman to the abortion clinic, and much more.
In many states, providers must also submit a separate report for any abortion-related complications. This is redundant paperwork, since medical coding and billing would already memorialize this complication. Moreover, most states fail to track pregnancy complications, even though pregnancy is more dangerous.
Abortion Data and Maternal Mortality
Supporters of these intrusive laws claim that the data protects women. They claim the data protects against coercion and collects important medical data that can prevent abortion complications. That logic doesn’t hold up, especially given that the data is primarily focused on uncovering personal information about the woman, such as her marital status and payment method.
The same legislators who claim to care so much about women and their health have done nothing to slow the epidemic of maternal mortality. Abortion is exponentially safer than giving birth. In Georgia, which has the worst maternal mortality rate in the country and one of the strictest anti-choice laws, giving birth is 111 times more dangerous than abortion for black women, and 70 times more dangerous for white women. Despite this, states collect little data on maternal mortality.
Indeed, many states’ reporting standards are designed to conceal and underestimate maternal mortality. Until 2003, coroners were not even required to list maternal mortality on death certificates. Legislators are collecting data on an extremely safe procedure while ignoring soaring number of women who die giving birth.
For long-time choice activists, bans and restrictions on abortion are just the beginning of the nightmare scenario. The right legislative action and court rulings could go much further, criminalizing abortion and turning every miscarriage into probable cause for an investigation or arrest. In the anti-feminist dystopia the far right dreams of, abortion is more than merely illegal. It’s an offense that can get you jailed for life, or even executed. Collecting abortion data is an intimidation tactic, and just one more weapon in the far-right’s arsenal of abuse tactics.