FOI reference: FOI-2026-3696
You asked
I request the number of abortions for every year from the date they were legalised in the relevant jurisdiction to the most recent available, broken down by:
- age of the woman: under 20, 20 to 24, 25 to 29, 30 to 34, 35 to 39, 40 to 44, 45 to 49
- woman’s country of birth: UK-born vs foreign-born (non-UK)
If the country-of-birth split is not recorded for the full period, provide the combined totals for those years and state from which year the split is available.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We publish our Conceptions in England and Wales dataset,, which includes the number of conceptions leading to abortion by age of woman, broken down as:
- under the age of 20 years
- aged 20 to 24 years
- aged 25 to 29 years
- aged 30 to 34 years
- aged 35 to 39 years
- aged 40 years and over
These published datasets include statistics on abortions from 1991 to 2023, with earliest years available in the 2001 edition of the dataset.
We do not hold abortions data for years 1967 to 1990, and 2024 onwards. We also do not hold abortion statistics on woman's country of birth. Release dates for conceptions in England and Wales for 2024, including numbers leading to abortion by age of woman, will be announced when we receive abortion data from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for that period.
The DHSC publishes abortions by the age of woman in its Abortion statistics in England and Wales publication. The most recent abortion data tables are available on the GOV.UK website. Table 4a provides age breakdowns, including breakdowns by age groups 40 to 44 and 45 to 49. Previous publications date back to 2011.
You may wish to contact the DHSC directly for further information or details at abortion.statistics@dhsc.gov.uk or via the DHSC contact form.