£1 Million a Week Taxpayers’ Money is Spent on Repeat Abortions in the UK

By Lucia Muchova | May 18, 2012

The Daily Mail and the Telegraph have recently reported that the National Health Service pays an estimated £1million a week for abortions on women who have already had one or more pregnancy terminations.

Numerically, this makes 64,445 (34%) repeat abortions out of the overall 189,574 performed in 2010 in England and Wales. This is an increase from 52,663 in 2000. These are official figures available from the Department of Health statistics and the cost is calculated using an estimate of up to £1,000 per abortion.

The Department of Health reports that the percentage of repeat abortions increases with age: 8% of those under 18 years old had a repeat abortion compared with 44% of women over the age of 35. Even more troubling statistic, however, is that almost a quarter (25%) of abortions in women aged under 25 were repeat abortions.

The NHS has opposed the view that repeat abortions might be linked to using abortion as a form of contraception. Indeed, such assumptions cannot easily be deduced from available statistics. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health asserted that “Our data on contraception also shows that there has been no decrease in the number of women using contraception – and more women are turning to extremely effective methods such as long-acting contraception.”

Yet the increasing number of repeat abortions still begs more questions. Is abortion seen as the “last resort” option? Do all abortions meet the legal criteria of preventing serious permanent injury to the woman, avoiding physical or mental health risk? Is it an “emergency” measure as described in the Abortion Act from 1967? Or is the current trend more reflective of a casual approach to sex that does not want to bear the consequences?

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