Michele Bachmann misleads supporters about CDC abortion data

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There she goes again.

Rep. Michele Bachmann has stated flatly to supporters in a fundraising e-mail that the Obama administration is refusing to publish the CDC's annual "Abortion Surveillance Report."

But an e-mail (below) obtained by Media Matters shows that the report has been submitted for editing, and the CDC says a delay in data collection has merely pushed the publication date back.

There's nothing unusual about that delay, contrary to a claim at Red State that, "For 40 years that report has appeared in the last November or first December issue of CDC's journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Report Weekly Report." The data for 1998 were published in June 2002, for example. The data for 1993 were published in August 1997, and the data for 1992 were published in May 1996.

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Red State claimed the White House "killed" the report, Fox News gave the blog rumor a megaphone, and now it's showing up in Bachmann's e-mail, because she's looking for red meat to feed her drive to defund Planned Parenthood:

RedState.com has revealed that, for the first time in 40 years, the Centers for Disease Control has not published their annual "Abortion Surveillance Report," which details how many legal abortions are performed in the United States every year.

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But here's the e-mail obtained by Media Matters showing the report has been submitted for the usual editing process.

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CDC via Media Matters
The report has been delayed, not "killed."

And even Red State was willing to publish an e-mail it received from the CDC, attesting to the delay of the publication. Maybe Bachmann should have read that e-mail before declaring:

The fact that this report is no longer being published is another example of the lack of transparency in this Administration.

CDC expects to publish the data sometime later this month.

Previous Michele Bachmann Coverage:

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