State lacks details on abortions

The news sounded like a corporate annual report:

Pierce County has the highest abortion rate of any county in the state of Washington.

Some 26 percent of all pregnancies there ended in abortion. The statewide average in 2004 — the latest numbers available — was 23 percent, the same as the national average.

Stop and think: One quarter of all pregnancies in Washington end in abortion. That's about 24,500 procedures a year; each one a story.

Each also serves as an alarm that women across the state may not be getting the kind of sex education and family planning they need.

It's hard to reverse the trend when we don't know enough about the women seeking abortions.

What's worse, neither does the state. Its abortion-reporting form — required with every procedure — asks nothing about education, income level or access to family planning.

All its form asks is the age, race and residency of the patient; the procedure performed; and whether there were any complications.

"That's it," said Kristen Glundberg-Prosser, public-affairs director for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, an abortion provider.

I've seen people reveal more about themselves while applying for credit cards at Mariners games, when all they want is a free beach towel.

But the officials who purport to know what's best for us when it comes to family planning admittedly don't know enough about us.

State Health Department officials cite patients' confidentiality. Research investigator Phyllis Reed called it "our highest priority."

And, yet, how can the state honor our privacy as we undergo abortions — a difficult option — and not honor our attempts to avoid them?

This is, after all, the place where the state Board of Pharmacy wanted to allow pharmacists to refuse to sell Plan B — emergency contraceptive pills — for moral reasons.

Gov. Christine Gregoire stepped in with an alternative proposal that passed, and the FDA, days later, approved over-the-counter sales to those 18 and over. Had those things not happened, pharmacists would have been allowed to stand there and judge women in need of birth control — and now.

The state does collect information from women at family-planning clinics, to ensure that they are being educated about their reproductive choices.

"Please don't get the idea that we don't get to know people," said Cynthia Harris, a health-service consultant with the state Health Department. "It's just that the abortion reporting may not be the best place to get it."

It makes no sense to collect information only from women getting abortions, she said, when you're dealing with the needs of women statewide.

"It all comes down to planning pregnancies," she said.

That's fine. I get all that.

But if we're going to help women prevent abortions, we have to know more about the lives of those who have had them, all the while respecting their privacy and their choice.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Wednesday and Sunday.

Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She'd love a chat with Donna Dockter.