Method Type
Among the 43 areas that reported by method type for 2015 and included medical abortion on their reporting form, 64.3% of abortions were surgical abortions at ≤13 weeks’ gestation, 24.6% were early medical abortions (a nonsurgical abortion at ≤8 weeks’ gestation), and 8.8% were surgical abortions at >13 weeks’ gestation; other methods (medical abortion at >8 weeks’ gestation, intrauterine instillation, and hysterectomy/hysterotomy) were uncommon (≤2.2%) (Table 11). Among the 34 reporting areas that included medical abortion on their reporting form and provided these data for the relevant years of comparison (2006 versus 2015, 2006 versus 2010, 2011 versus 2015, and 2014 versus 2015), use of early medical abortion increased 8% from 2014 to 2015 (from 22.5% of abortions to 24.2%); from 2006 to 2015, use of early medical abortion increased 114% (from 11.3% of abortions to 24.2%). Increases in early medical abortion occurred both from 2006 to 2010 (from 11.3% of abortions to 18.4% [63% increase]) and from 2011 to 2015 (from 19.2% of abortions to 24.2% [26% increase]).
Among the 30 reporting areas that provided data by procedure and individual week of gestational age each year from 2011 to 2015,**** when recent clinical guidelines extended mifepristone use to 70 days’ gestation, the percentage of abortions at 9 completed weeks’ gestation that were reported as medical abortions did not change substantially between 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 (5.0%, 5.7%, 6.7%, and 7.7%, respectively) and then increased to 13.0% in 2015. Among the 43†††† areas that reported by method type for 2015 and included medical abortion on their reporting form, 26.0% were medical abortions performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation. Of these medical abortions performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation, 94.6% were performed at ≤8 weeks and 5.4% were performed at 9 weeks.
In contrast to the increase that occurred in use of early medical abortion, use of surgical abortion at ≤13 weeks’ gestation decreased 18% from 2006 to 2015 (from 79.2% of abortions to 64.7%). Surgical abortion at >13 weeks’ gestation consistently accounted for approximately 8.0%–9.0% of all abortions, and all other methods combined consistently accounted for a limited percentage of abortions (1.4%–2.4%) during 2006–2015.