Abortions down again
The annual abortion stats have been published. Some interesting stats:
- The number of abortions has dropped for the 13th year in a row – down from a high of 18,511 in 2003 to 12,823 in 2016 – a drop of around one third.
- The abortion rate per 1,000 women of fertility age has dropped from 20.8 in 2003 to 13.5 in 2016.
- This is the lowest rate since 1989
- The proportion of pregnancies that end in an abortion has dropped from 24.7% in 2003 to 17.7% in 2016
- The number of abortions for people aged under 20 has dropped from 4,277 in 2007 to 1,478 in 2016. That is a huge drop.
- 57% of abortions occur before week 10 of the pregnancy and 94% in the first trimester
- By ethnicity the decline in the number of abortions since 2007 is Pasifika 40%, Maori 33%, European 31% and Asian 13%.