At her Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmation hearing, Dr. Erica Schwartz warned that America is flying blind on abortion because the federal government’s data system is too weak to reliably tell the country what is actually happening.
Story Snapshot
- Dr. Erica Schwartz told Senators that abortion surveillance is “absolutely critical” and must be improved.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relies on voluntary reports from states, so national abortion totals are incomplete.
- Large states like California, Maryland, and New Hampshire have not consistently reported basic abortion data to the CDC for years.
- Experts across the spectrum say these gaps make it hard for Americans to judge the real health, safety, and policy impact of abortion.
What Dr. Erica Schwartz Said At Her Confirmation Hearing
At her confirmation hearing to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Erica Schwartz told Senators that “abortion surveillance is absolutely critical” for the nation’s health and for honest public debate. She explained that the CDC’s current abortion reporting system depends on states choosing to share numbers, rather than being required to do so. This voluntary setup means key information is missing and weakens national statistics used by both supporters and opponents of abortion.
Dr. Schwartz said that if she is confirmed, she plans to strengthen abortion data collection so Americans can trust the numbers they see. She pointed to problems such as unclear case definitions, different reporting forms, and gaps in what states track, like race, age, and how far along a pregnancy is. These details matter for judging health risks, for seeing who is most affected, and for checking whether new laws are making abortions safer or more dangerous over time.
How The CDC Abortion Surveillance System Works Today
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began abortion surveillance in 1969 to count legal induced abortions and study who is having them. Each year, the agency asks central health agencies in every state, the District of Columbia, and New York City to send aggregate abortion data. These are total numbers, not detailed patient records. There is no national law that forces states to report. Many states have their own rules that require clinics and doctors to report abortions to the state, but they decide what to pass on to the CDC.
Because reporting to the CDC is voluntary, states use different forms and do not always collect or share all the details the CDC requests. The CDC itself warns that its abortion totals are incomplete and cannot capture every abortion in the United States. In its 2022 surveillance report, the CDC said it received data from 48 reporting areas, but four places did not submit any abortion data at all. When basic numbers are missing, national counts and trends can be off, and changes after major court decisions or new state laws are harder to measure clearly.
The Long-Running Data Gaps That Worry Both Sides
Public health experts have flagged serious abortion data gaps for decades, long before today’s political fights. The Guttmacher Institute, a research group often cited by liberals, reported in 2015 that three states — California, Maryland, and New Hampshire — did not provide basic data on abortion numbers and patient traits to the CDC. Even among states that do report, Guttmacher found that quality and timeliness are uneven, so the CDC has to caution that its abortion totals underestimate the true count.
A later analysis from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, echoed the same concern from the other side of the aisle. It noted that California, Maryland, and New Hampshire have “consistently failed to report” abortion data to the CDC for years and warned that this makes CDC reports a “considerable underestimate” of how many lives are ended by abortion. When both liberal and conservative researchers agree the numbers are incomplete, it confirms the core point Schwartz raised: the country’s main official abortion data system is structurally weak and has been for a long time.
Why Better Abortion Surveillance Matters For Ordinary Americans
Incomplete abortion data does not just frustrate statisticians; it affects millions of Americans trying to understand real risks and real trends. Many citizens on the right believe abortion takes lives on a huge scale and want to know exactly how many abortions are happening and under what conditions. Many citizens on the left worry about women’s health, access to care, and inequality, and want clear data on safety, complications, and who is most affected when laws change. Both sides are hurt when the government cannot provide solid numbers they can trust.
If confirmed to CDC director, Erica Schwartz says she will improve abortion surveillance statistics.
SCHWARTZ: "Abortion surveillance is absolutely a critical component of what the CDC is currently doing. To your point, it may be moved to another agency within HHS…. I also…
— Gabrielle M. Etzel (@UnvarnishedGME) July 15, 2026
For a growing number of Americans, the deeper concern is that the federal government seems either unable or unwilling to build basic systems that tell the truth about major national issues. When the CDC must admit it “is unable to report the total number of abortions performed in the United States” because of voluntary reporting and uneven standards, it feeds the belief that elites in Washington are not serious about transparent, accountable health policy. Schwartz’s pledge to improve abortion surveillance speaks directly to this shared frustration and tests whether the federal government can fix at least one part of the broken data picture.
Sources:
youtube.com, cdc.gov, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, guttmacher.org, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
