Here's the thing, when you don't do the reading - you look foolish when you get up in front of the class. The CDC has never claimed or implied that its abortion statistics are complete. This is noted and discussed in EVERY SINGLE REPORT ISSUED BY THE CDC ON THE SUBJECT. There's usually a big section called 'Limitations' or 'Discussion' that specifically outlines the shortcomings of the data.
For example, from the 1998 statistical report:
The overall number, ratio, and rate of abortions from this analysis are conservative estimates because the numbers of legal induced abortions reported to CDC for 1998 were probably lower than the numbers actually performed. Totals provided by central health agencies may be lower than those obtained by direct surveys of abortion providers (50). For example, the total number of abortions reported to CDC for 1997 was approximately 12% lower than that reported for 1997 by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a private organization that contacts abortion providers directly to obtain information concerning the total number of abortions performed (30). In addition, four states (Alaska, California, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma) did not collect abortion data and not all states collected and/or reported information (e.g., age, race, and gestational age) about women obtaining a legal induced abortion in 1998; therefore, the numbers, percentages, rates, and ratios derived from this analysis may not be representative of all women who obtained abortions.
Furthermore, abortion data are compiled and reported by CDC by reporting area where the abortion occurs rather than by reporting area where the woman resides. This inflates the numbers, ratios and rates of abortions for areas where a high proportion of legal abortions are obtained by out-of-state residents and undercounts procedures for states with limited abortion services. CDC will encourage all reporting areas to compile and report complete information regarding the residential status of women obtaining abortions.
What would help is a requirement for uniform statistics provision from all reporting areas. As the CDC itself notes:
Although CDC obtains aggregate abortion numbers from most of the central health agencies, the level of detail that it receives on the characteristics of women obtaining abortions varies considerably from year to year and by reporting area. To encourage more uniform collection of these details, CDC has collaborated with the National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems to develop reporting standards and provide technical guidance for vital statistics personnel who collect and summarize abortion data within the United States. However, because the collection and reporting of abortion data are not federally mandated, many reporting areas have developed their own data collection forms and therefore do not collect or provide all the information or level of detail included in this report.
LifesiteNews probably knows all this. I'm going to assume SOMEONE there has some basic statistical literacy and an inclination to read down to the bottom of the page. Then again, looking at the content of the site, that's maybe an unwarranted assumption - it seems that frothing outrage about abortions, transgender individuals, inappropriate contentography, eugenics, gay marriage, liberals and AntiFa are standard fare, not actually diving into anything difficult, like thinking about real-world solutions and ways to improve reporting.
