133 Molesworth Street
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
T+64 4 496 2000
31 March 2022
Lisa
By email: [FYI request #18914 email]
Ref: H202204223
Tēnā koe Lisa
Response to your request for official information
Thank you for your request under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) to the Ministry of
Health (the Ministry) on 18 March 2022 regarding information on abortion statistics between 1
January 2015 and 31 December 2021. You requested the following information for each year
and asked:
Preferably this information wil be in a spreadsheet where these factors can be filtered to
enable comparison across the different categories.
The now disestablished Abortion Supervisory Commit ee and Ministry of Justice were
responsible for publishing statistics based on abortion notifications received up until 23 March
2020. The Ministry of Health has been responsible for publishing statistics based on abortion
notifications received from 24 March 2020 following the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 coming
into force.
Abortion Annual Reports from 2016-2021 include statistics for 2015-2020. The reports are
publicly available at:
•
www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/abortion-supervisory-commit ee/annual-reports/.
•
www.health.govt.nz/publication/abortion-services-aotearoa-new-zealand-annual-report-
2021.
The 2021 statistics will be released on the Ministry’s website in October 2022 as part of the
2022 Annual Abortion Report.
Total number of abortions undertaken nationally and then broken down into the following
also:
- by District Health Board
- per abortion provider
This is available within the published reports noted above. Please note, statistics up to 2019
were reported by regional council area rather by district health board area.
- by fetous gestational age as follows 0-10 weeks, 11-20 weeks, 21-30 weeks, 31-40
weeks
The published reports include abortions by gestational age under 8 weeks, 8–12 weeks, 13–16
weeks, 17–20 weeks and 21 weeks plus.
- by sex, male, female, unknown
Sex of the fetus is not captured within abortion notification data as such we cannot provide you
data on this.
- age of mother 0-15 years, 16-20 years, 21-25 years, 26-30 years, 31-35 years, 36-40
years, 41-45 years, 45-50 years etc
The published reports include abortions by standard five-year maternal age groups (11-14
years, 15-19 years, 20-24 years, 25-29 years, 30-34 years, 35-39 years, 40-44 years and 45
years +) as well as abortion in those under 16 years by each age year.
- the reason the abortion was approved
This data was collected up until 23 March 2020 and can be found in published reports up until
2020.
- the number of abortions that resulted in a live birth
- of the number of live births the percentage that were terminated after the event through
inaction and leaving the baby to die
- of the number of live births the percentage that were terminated after the event by
medical intervention”
This data is not captured within abortion notification data as such we cannot provide you data
on this. The Ministry is not aware of any abortions that resulted in a live birth.
Under section 28(3) of the Act, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review any
decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may be contacted by email at:
[email address] or by calling 0800 802 602.
Please note that this response, with your personal details removed, may be published on the
Ministry website at:
www.health.govt.nz/about-ministry/information-releases/responses-official-
information-act-requests.
Nāku noa, nā
Emma Prestidge
Group Manager, Quality Assurance and Safety
Health System Improvement and Innovation
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