Each year more than 1.1. million abortions are performed in the U.S. Nailing down clear safety data has been difficult, because many women must (travel) and are lost to follow-up tracking. California is one of 17 states that covers abortion and subsequent care for women enrolled in Medicaid. Which means there’s solid data about the procedure in that (populous) state. And a study that took advantage of the existence of that data found that major complications, or those that required hospital admission, (surgery) or blood transfusion, are exceedingly rare. They occur in only 1 of 436 abortions.