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Family Planning Perspectives In 1996, as well, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took significant steps toward approving the use of medical (nonsurgical) abortion in the United States, essentially by “preapproving” the use of mifepristone, popularly known as RU 486, as an abortifacient; final approval is pending information on manufacturing and labeling. In addition, FDA cleared the way for clinical study by U.S. health care providers of a combination of two other drugs— methotrexate and misoprostol—used to induce early nonsurgical abortions. While it remains to be seen to what extent the advent of medical (nonsurgical) abortions will actually change the provision of abortion services in the United States, it is at least possible that such abortions will be administered by health care providers who, for whatever reasons, have been reluctant to provide surgical abortions. If new providers do indeed emerge, incorporating abortion reporting by these providers into current reporting procedures will be critical both to measuring the number of abortions provided in the United States, and to monitoring the drugs’ use and safety. Furthermore, because medical abortion is used primarily in the first seven weeks of pregnancy, the provision of nonsurgical abortion may lead to a shift in the timing of abortions. Documenting this shift might prove important to the abortion debate, since many individuals support early abortion but grow increasingly uncomfortable with the procedure as the pregnancy continues. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the government agency currently responsible for compiling U.S. abortion data, has been criticized by some people for its inability to answer all abortion-related inquiries—particularly, detailed questions relating to late-term abortions. However, such criticism does not consider that—in keeping with vital statistics tradition—CDC obtains its data through a volAbortion Reporting in the United States: An Examination of the Federal-State Partnership