Congressman Madison Cawthorn introduced legislation to require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to include abortions in US death rates.
The bill is titled, "Seeking Official Uncounted Lives Statistics Act" or the "SOULS Act."
If passed, the director of the CDC will be required to include, to the extent possible, aborted embryos and fetuses in the death rate.
Currently, the CDC does not list abortion as a cause of death.
In a statement about the legislation provided to Timcast, Cawthorn's office said that "theoretically, according to CDC metrics, this preventable cause of death would rank in the top 5 causes of death if they were calculated."
"An unborn child is a human life, no matter what stage of pregnancy the mother is in. Simply ignoring this massacre of Americans is not only wrong, it's discriminatory. Life begins at conception and the recognition of that life ought to begin at conception as well. The current system of ignoring infanticide can no longer be tolerated. I am proud to introduce this common-sense piece of legislation which will reveal the devastating amount of lives lost to abortion in our nation." said Congressman Cawthorn in a statement provided to Timcast.
Currently, according to the CDC's website, states and "areas" are not required to report data to the CDC on abortions, but can voluntarily report to the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health if they choose to do so. There is no national requirement for data submission or reporting.
The CDC has been attempting to keep track of abortion numbers since 1969 to "document the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions," but as it is not mandatory to report, the numbers are not accurate.
"CDC compiles the information these reporting areas collect to produce national estimates. CDC’s surveillance system compiles information on legal induced abortions," the website states. "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, physician assistant) within the limits of state regulations, that is intended to terminate a suspected or known ongoing intrauterine pregnancy and that does not result in a live birth. Most states and reporting areas that collect abortion data report if an abortion was medical or surgical. Medical abortions are legal procedures that use medications instead of surgery."
According to the CDC's numbers from 2019, which were released in 2021, "629,898 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. Among 48 reporting areas with data each year during 2010–2019, in 2019, a total of 625,346 abortions were reported, the abortion rate was 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, and the abortion ratio was 195 abortions per 1,000 live births."
California, Maryland, and New Hampshire do not report their abortion numbers, according to the CDC.
Per the CDC, approximately 18% of all pregnancies in the United States end in induced abortion.
