(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)

According to figures released to Independent TD Carol Nolan by the Health Service Executive, the number of abortions in 2023 almost certainly exceeded 10,000. That’s because from January to November 2023, GPs made claims for reimbursements for a total of 9,218 abortions. That figure doesn’t include abortion carried out in hospitals, or during the month of December, and once those are included the figure should easily surpass 10,000 abortions last year.

Compare this with figures from the last few years (2019 being the first year in which abortion was widely available).

YearBirthsAbortionsAbortion Ratio
(% pregnancies ending in abortion)		Notes
201761,82449117.94Abortion number* estimates by Minimise
201861,02250868.33Abortion number* estimates by Minimise
201959,294704111.87HSE figure + Irish abortions in UK
202056,812677111.91HSE figure
202160,575670011.06Estimate based on reimbursements (reported figure is 4577)**
202257,540815614.17HSE figure

* See our posts making these estimates here:

How many Irish abortions before repeal? Irish abortion statistics 1968-2018

Did we overestimate the rise in abortion after repeal? We probably underestimated it

** The HSE suspect that given the discrepancy between the GP reimbursement requests and the reported abortion figures in 2019 (the former being much in line with previous years while the latter saw a sharp fall) that the apparent drop in abortions here is probably a result of the same year’s HSE hack. See HSE supplementary note on gov.ie.

***

What we see here is a pattern of increase upon increase. Even if you think all our estimates for pre-repeal abortion numbers were wrong and repeal made no difference to the abortion numbers in 2019 (and if you think that, please get in touch with us at theminimiseproject@gmail.com to tell us where all those pre-repeal abortions we missed came from), then it still looks like it set in motion a pattern of quite dramatic increase after that. When trying to explain why abortions went from just over 7000 to somewhere over 10,000 within five years without any parallel increase in births, you have to work very hard indeed to avoid considering, you know, the fact that abortion was widely legalised as a plausible explanation.

If you think our estimates for pre-repeal abortions were about right (and we made them deliberately generous) then it looks as though the number of abortions has about doubled since repeal. Now the birth numbers for 2023 aren’t out yet, and it’s possible that there will be a huge spike in total pregnancies that entirely explains the latest jump in abortion numbers. But based on the last few years it doesn’t look likely.

This is horrific. It should really be the final nail in the coffin for this line of argument from Minister for Enterprise and Reluctant Repealer Simon Coveney:

I believe a woman who proceeds with an abortion after receiving the support and information though a protocol such as I’ve described [the three-day waiting period in Irish legislation] is very likely to have travelled to the UK or accessed a pill online in the absence of such a system being available in Ireland.

This was a line that you heard a lot in the referendum: that the eighth amendment was just relocating abortions, not reducing them. In the light of the above figures, this now looks completely implausible. The claim would have to be that some factor would have increased Ireland’s abortion figures by thousands even if repeal hadn’t happened. But what could that factor be? It’s not the total number of pregnancies. Surely this is a case where the simplest explanation is the best: when you make something legal, you get more of it. As abortion becomes normalised as part of the medical system, more and more people are choosing it as an option.

***

The increase in abortion since repeal is dramatic. So why is barely anyone talking about it? Given that “this won’t lead to any more abortions” was such a key talking point in the referendum, where’s the soul-searching now that that’s so manifestly not the case? Why do pro-life groups feel like we’re shouting into the void?

For my money there are three main reasons:

  1. People find abortion unpleasant to think about. Though “middle Ireland” is now quite solidly pro-choice, very few people actually celebrate abortion, and would rather find any excuse not to bring it to mind. The narrative that this question has now been “settled” is an excellent such excuse.
  2. The same narrative is very useful for the pro-choice side of the debate: particularly for pro-choice people in the media. If you were a producer on the side of trying to change the law before repeal, it would have been natural to see many opportunities to run news stories, panel discussions, documentaries etc. You just won’t be as inclined to prominently feature stories that upset that narrative now that repeal has happened, especially not if the stories lend support towards tightening the law or against further liberalisation.
  3. People hate admitting that they were wrong, particularly publicly. So for example, it’s crickets from Simon Coveney. You see this tendency on the pro-life side too: in the debate on the 2013 abortion legislation known as the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, some pro-lifers raised the prospect that the provision allowing for abortion on the grounds of the threat of suicide would be widely abused in the way that the ‘health of the mother’ ground is in the UK. This would lead to an immediate and sharp increase in the number of abortions. During the five years between the Act and Repeal, that never in fact materialised. My own view is that every additional life lost due to that Act was a tragedy, but in fairness no pro-lifers rushed out to say “we messed up that estimate there, sorry.”
    People are so reluctant to admit they were wrong that they often redescribe or revise their past positions to avoid it. This is pure guesswork, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see many people now happily abandoning the “it won’t increase abortions anyway” line in favour of a more broadly pro-choice stance, and even claiming that this was their reason for voting Yes all along.

The takeaway here is that the Irish people almost certainly not going to suddenly wake up and realise the damage repeal has done just based on an increase in abortion numbers. As ever, the job is to actually convince people that abortion is a human rights violation. There are no shortcuts.

That said, what’s happened here is useful if you’re having a conversation with someone who think abortion bans don’t reduce the number of abortions. You could do worse than show them the table at the top of this post and ask “well, what happened here?”

Ben