Abortion rate lower than claimed as miscarriages not factored in

“One in four pregnancies ends in abortion in England and Wales”

“A record QUARTER of pregnancies in England and Wales now end in abortion, official data shows”

The Times and the Daily Mail have both reported that a quarter of prengnacies in England and Wales lead to abortion.

This is sourced to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for 2019, and marks the first time legal abortions have increased to this level, since records began in 1990.

However, there’s one big caveat which means the figure being reported isn’t accurate.

The ONS’s data captures the number of abortions as a proportion of the number of pregnancies which ended in a live birth, a stillbirth or an abortion.

This means it doesn’t take into account the sadly quite large number of pregnancies which end in miscarriage (when the pregnancy is lost during the first 23 weeks), which the ONS does specify.

But neither The Times nor the Mail’s reports mention this important detail.  

The number of miscarriages isn’t officially recorded, but Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research estimates that one in eight pregnancies ended in miscarriage, where the mother knew they were pregnant and had miscarried.

It estimates one in five pregnancies in total end in miscarriage, amounting to around 250,000 each year in the UK.

If these were factored into the ONS’s calculations, the proportion of pregnancies which end in abortion would be considerably lower, perhaps around one in five, rather than one in four, as reported.

Additionally, the data doesn’t include an estimate for the number of illegal abortions taking place in England and Wales.

The ONS says: “It is impossible to determine the extent of illegal abortions, for example, by women using drugs bought online.”