I am interested in finding out how many D&X (“partial birth”) abortions have been performed in the US over the last 10 years or so, and if possible, how many were performed on a normal fetus. I am not interested in discussing the legality or morality of this issue, I am looking solely for numbers. Are they available? And if so, where?
I am not a doctor, but I believe the D&X term usually stands for “dialation and extraction” which can be but is not always (and probably not often) “partial-birth abortion” (call it PBA). D&X, for instance, are also used after naturally occuring miscarriages where not all of the dead fetus is expelled. I’m sure you could get some sort of number on the number of D&X’s performed in a year, but that number would not reflect PBA as there would be plenty of miscarriages represented in the number.
I did a little bit of checking around, and I’m not sure you’d be able to find what you’re looking for.
In the United States, health care encounters are measured by two codes: one is for diagnosis, and one is for procedure. I no longer have access to the procedure codes, and I cannot find any diagnosis code describing a legal abortion that reflects the state of the fetus. In other words, as far as the International Classification of Diseases is concerned, an abortion is an abortion, period. There are codes that reflect complications that the mother is having, but as far as the fetus is concerned, the ICD-9 is silent. (I used this site; the diagnosis codes are free, but the procedure codes cost $75.)
All is not totally lost, though. The Alan Guttmacher Institute gathers and keeps statistics and is about as objective and nonpartisan a source as you’re going to find. Here is the search I ran. You might be able to find what you’re looking for there.
Robin