Research, data analysis, and commentary on abortion, fertility trends, and pro-natal policies.
Analysis of abortion complications data published by the DHSC and by NHS England shows that the government continues to deliberately under-report, and that it has excluded more than 99% of complication treatments for early medical abortions, from its official 2023 statistics report. On 15 January 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published... Continue Reading →
OHID: “There were 277,970 abortions for residents of England and Wales in 2023, the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced and an increase of 11% compared with 2022.” [i] The government has just published the 2023 abortion statistics for England and Wales (15 January 2026). These were originally expected in June 2024 and... Continue Reading →
“The government is fully aware of the numbers of women being admitted to hospital for treatment of abortion complications but for some reason seems unwilling to report these on an annual basis,” Duffy wrote. He called for greater transparency and accountability, arguing, “Deliberately minimising and misleading women about the reality of these risks is no... Continue Reading →
In 1800, roughly one in three children died before their fifth birthday, reflecting an under-five mortality rate (U5MR) of 329 deaths per 1,000 live births. Faced with such high child mortality, women had just under six children on average to ensure that some survived to adulthood—a stark contrast to today’s average of just 1.45. Throughout... Continue Reading →
A government minister or a higher-up in the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (OHID) must have decided that timely publication of Abortion Statistics is a waste of time and resource, what other reason is there for a further delay of ten months for this annual report? Parliamentary Questions need to be asked, again. UPDATE... Continue Reading →
Update on 15 January 2026 OHID has just published the 2023 abortion statistics for England and Wales. I have increased my 2024 estimate for the UK total to 305,000 - details are in this post: 2023: an 11% increase in abortion across England and Wales. In 2024, there were 300,000 abortions in the UK, an 11%... Continue Reading →
There were probably more than 300,000 abortions in the UK in 2024, up from our conservative estimate of 292,000 in 2023. This estimate is based on official published data in Scotland and Northern Ireland for 2023 and annual reports published by BPAS and MSI-RC for the same year. The last set of official data for... Continue Reading →
An effective medical abortion is defined by the MARE Guidelines[i] as a successful expulsion of an intrauterine pregnancy without the need for surgical intervention, clarified by the following sub-categories: Continuing pregnancy: treated with surgical management Continuing pregnancy: patient opted to continue or outcome is unknown Retained products treated with surgical management (an evacuation of retained... Continue Reading →
In its recently published report into abortion statistics for 2022 (England and Wales), the UK Government presented misleading and incomplete data about the numbers of complications arising from medical abortions; and worse still, they knew they were doing so.[i] In fairness to the reporting team at the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, they do... Continue Reading →
We can now say with more certainty that in 2022, the total abortions in England and Wales will have been about 250,000, a substantial year-on-year increase of 17%, compared with an annual average increase of less than 3% over the last 53 years. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has only published data... Continue Reading →
In the last five years across England and Wales, at least 39,000 women have been treated at NHS hospitals for complications arising from failed or incomplete DIY medical abortions at home; in the past, these complications would have been treated at the abortion providers’ facilities. Five years ago, abortion was only provided at approved abortion... Continue Reading →
