{"id":541993,"date":"2026-07-10T01:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541993\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T01:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:56:20","slug":"abortion-numbers-fall-to-10600-during-2025-says-department-of-health-report-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541993\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion numbers fall to 10,600 during 2025, says Department of Health report \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The number of legal abortions<\/a> carried out in Ireland last year dropped slightly to 10,600, down 252 from the year before. <\/p>\n

The seventh annual report on abortion services since the health procedure became legal in Ireland in January 2019 has been submitted to the Oireachtas by the Department of Health. <\/p>\n

It said that the Health Service Executive (HSE) was notified of 10,600 terminations of pregnancy in 2025, with the overwhelming majority of 10,445 taking place in early pregnancy under 12 weeks. <\/p>\n

The majority of these abortions are usually done via medication made available to a woman by her GP, though some terminations closer to the 12-week limit may take place in a hospital setting. <\/p>\n

The latest figure was a slight decrease on the total 10,852 abortions, including 10,711 early terminations, that took place in 2024. <\/p>\n

When a woman is under 12 weeks\u2019 pregnant, she is able to access a legal abortion in Ireland with no restriction but is currently required to wait three days<\/a> between seeking an abortion and being legally able to access one. <\/p>\n

In 2025, 25 women accessed an abortion beyond 12 weeks on the grounds that there was a risk to their life or health. Another 13 women accessed an abortion where there was a risk to their life or health in an emergency. <\/p>\n

There were 117 cases where a woman accessed a termination for medical reasons after doctors agreed on the diagnosis of a condition likely to lead to the death of a foetus.<\/p>\n

To qualify for a legal abortion for medical reasons, doctors must agree that the condition is likely to lead to death \u201ceither in utero or within 28 days of birth\u201d. In 2025, two separate women unsuccessfully sought a review of a decision to deny them a legal abortion on these grounds. <\/p>\n

In 2023, an independent review of Ireland\u2019s abortion law had recommended removing the 28-day clause as it said the law was difficult to implement \u201ceven in cases where the condition may be fatal and associated with severe morbidity and\/or disability\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last week the HSE published a report on the first six years of termination of pregnancy services in Ireland. It included, for the first time, a profile of women who have availed of the service.<\/p>\n

It said almost two thirds of women who had a hospital-based abortion over an eight-month period had a previous pregnancy<\/a>. According to the report, the provision of abortion has evolved and is now largely viewed as a routine and normal part of healthcare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of legal abortions carried out in Ireland last year dropped slightly to 10,600, down 252 from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60,7038],"class_list":["post-541993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}