277,970 lives terminated by abortion in England and Wales in 2023

We have waited two years for this report, and the scale of what it reveals is staggering — 277,970 abortions for residents of England and Wales, that averages to 762 abortions every day; 32 per hour and one abortion every two minutes.

Significant gaps in data remain. The latest figures do not include information on marital status and social deprivation – the two most predictive factors of an abortion decision for many years. From previous government data we know that 82% of abortions were for women whose marital status was given as single. Furthermore, women living in the most deprived areas were up to three times more likely to have an abortion.

The report calls for caution regarding abortions for disability and post abortion complications with significant under-reporting of both. This raises serious concerns about transparency, policy direction, and the long-term impact on women, babies, and society. 

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The reasons for such a significant delay in publishing these figures remain unclear. Gaps in the figures directly impact the lives and health of women and babies. Yet, during that two-year wait, abortion activists have sought to introduce the most significant changes to abortion legislation since 1967; changes that remove safeguards including in-person care.

Abortion law and healthcare regulation must be grounded in timely, comprehensive, and reliable data, warning that policy decisions made in the absence of such information risk serious harm.

The newly published figures show a 11% rise in abortions — the stark outcome of nearly six decades of state-sponsored abortion provision.

The result of almost 60 years of government-funded abortion is now here in black and white for all to see. These numbers are a public record of 278,000 lives — boys and girls — who were never born. They also represent over 278,000 women who, for many reasons, did not continue their pregnancies and give birth.

We cannot view these figures just as abstract data points.

These statistics must not be dismissed as numbers on a spreadsheet or points on a graph. They represent real women and real babies, and their impact reaches far beyond individual lives — shaping British society and culture itself.

The current system can no longer credibly be described as pro-choice. With every new abortion report, it becomes increasingly clear that this is not a genuinely pro-choice health and social system. Instead, it is one that prioritises funding, providing, and promoting one choice and one outcome — abortion.

The legal requirement to collect abortion data and recording abortion statistics is not a box-ticking exercise. Understanding the ​‘why’ is essential if we are to respond to women’s real needs and address the social and structural failures that drive abortion.

This is particularly urgent for women who report that abortion was not their preferred choice.

Many women tell us they would have chosen life for their baby if a genuine, practical alternative had been available. These figures demand that policymakers listen to those voices and act.