Nearly one-third of all pregnancies in England and Wales end in abortion, recently-released government figures show.
Statistics on annual conceptions released by the Office for National Statistics on July 9 indicate that 29.7 percent of pregnancies were ended by an abortion in 2022, up from 26.5 percent the year prior. This is the highest proportion on record.
The 247,703 recorded abortions in 2022 is a 13.1 percent increase from the 218,923 abortions recorded in 2021. The numbers represent a nearly 50 percent jump in abortions since 2012, when 20.84 percent of conceptions ended in termination.
Most conceptions – 61.7 percent – occurred outside of marriage or civil partnerships. Within marriage or civil partnerships, 11.1 percent of pregnancies end in abortion, compared to 36 percent of pregnancies outside of them.
The dataset did not measure pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or illegal abortions, meaning the numbers could be even higher.
Archbishop John Sherrington, Lead Bishop for Life Issues for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said in a statement, “We need rapidly to re-establish a culture of life in which the unborn child is properly protected in legislation and in which we also provide compassionate assistance to those parents facing trauma as a result of their pregnancy.”
Abortion statistics released this month by the Department of Health in Ireland showed a similarly dire situation. There were 10,852 abortions in Ireland in 2024, which is an 8.16 percent increase since 2023 and a 62.8 percent increase from 2019.
That report also showed that 10,711 – nearly 99 percent – of the abortions were not to protect the health of the mother or as a result of a health condition likely to lead to the baby’s death.
Emily E. Davis, political communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the data “staggering and heart wrenching.” She continued, “One-third is not just a statistic. It represents a generation that never saw the light of day. When the destruction of unborn life becomes so routine, so normalized, it signals a society that has begun to lose sight of the most basic of human rights.”
Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins told NR, “This proves that England may be dead; there may be no coming back from this demographic cliff.” She said, “This is what the slippery slope of disrespecting life looks like, and the United States is not far behind. In fact, 1 in 5 US pregnancies end in abortion.”
About 21 percent of pregnancies in the United States are terminated, and roughly one-in-four American women will have an abortion in their lifetime.
“Treating a child’s life like a commodity to be owned or discarded according to someone else’s desire degrades the connection between mother and child and hurts us all,” Hawkins added. “If our lives are disposable in our youth, you know they will be disposable later. We must protect life from conception to natural death.”
The U.K. parliament voted in June to decriminalize abortion at all stages for any reason, though medical professionals may still be prosecuted under some circumstances.