National statistics

Abortion statistics for England and Wales: 2009

Information on abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2009.

From:
Department of Health and Social Care
Published
25 May 2010

Applies to England and Wales

Documents

Abortion statistics for England and Wales 2009: complete bulletin

PDF, 303 KB, 34 pages

View online

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email publications@dhsc.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Abortion statistics for England and Wales 2009: tables

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 2.66 MB

View online

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email publications@dhsc.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Abortion statistics for England and Wales 2009: pre-release access list

PDF, 10.3 KB, 1 page

View online

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email publications@dhsc.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

Information on abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2009 was released on 25 May 2010 according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

The information is obtained from the abortion notification forms returned to the Chief Medical Officers of England and Wales.

Key facts

In 2009, for women resident in England and Wales:

  • the total number of abortions was 189,100,compared with 195,296 in 2008, a fall of 3.2%
  • the age-standardised abortion rate was 17.5 per 1,000 resident women aged 15 to 44, compared with 18.2 in 2008
  • the abortion rate was highest at 33 per 1,000, for women aged 19, 20 and 21, each lower than in 2008
  • the under 16 abortion rate was 4.0 and the under 18 rate was 17.6 per 1,000 women, both lower than in 2008
  • 94% of abortions were funded by the NHS - of these, over half (60%) took place in the independent sector under NHS contract
  • 91% of abortions were carried out at under 13 weeks gestation - 75% were at under 10 weeks
  • medical abortions accounted for 40% of the total
  • 2,085 abortions (1%) were under ground E, risk that the child would be born handicapped

Non-residents

In 2009, there were 6,643 abortions for nonresidents carried out in hospitals and clinics in England and Wales (6,862 in 2008).

Published 25 May 2010