ABORTION STATISTICS

Abortion Statistics Canada

87,485 abortions occurred in Canada in 2021, as reported by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI.) These numbers are incomplete however since there is no legislative requirement for abortions done in abortion clinics or doctors' offices to be reported.  According to CIHI:

  • Ontario had the largest number of abortions in 2021 at 27,911. 

  • 25.8% of Canadian abortions were performed on women aged 24 and younger (Based on available detailed data.) 

  • Approximately one third of all abortions are done on women who have had at least one previous abortion.

According to 2019 statistics, the gestational age of the unborn child, reported by hospitals (excluding Quebec) only, was unknown in 21.3% of hospital abortions.  Of the remainder, 17.9% of aborted unborn children were 13 weeks gestation and older. That's 3,110 of the 17,421 hospital abortions.  At least 703 unborn children aborted in Canadian hospitals in 2019 were 21 weeks gestation or older.  Information on the age of unborn babies aborted in clinics and in Quebec is unknown.

According to Patricia Maloney of Run With Life, who uses the Freedom of Information to access data on abortion in Canada, CIHI reports 911 deaths by abortion of children in the womb that resulted in stillbirths in 2021-2022 and 935 in 2020-2021. CIHI reports 149 deaths by abortion of children in the womb that resulted in livebirths in 2021-2022 and 127 in 2020-2021.

Since 1970, over 4,000,000 unborn babies have been aborted in Canada. Read more


From CIHI:  "Hospitals are mandated by their provincial/territorial ministry of health to report all hospital activity (not limited to abortions); therefore, coverage of abortions performed in Canadian hospitals can be considered complete. However, there is no such legislative requirement for clinics to report their activity (reporting is voluntary). For 2019, hospital data for Nunavut is incomplete.”

Canada is one of only 7 countries in the world that allows abortions past 20 weeks, considered the point of viability in Canada. It, along with North Korea, China and Vietnam, has no restrictions on abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy.
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Abortion Statistics Ontario

The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (OMHLTC) reports there were 46,189 abortions in Ontario in a one-year period from 2019 to 2020. That is a substantially higher number than what has been reported by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (27,911, a difference of 18,278 abortions.) OMHLTC is considered accurate since its reports include medical abortions and all other abortion methods, while CIHI reporting does not.

Abortion Statistics United States

The last year for which the Centre for Disease Control and the Guttmacher Institute reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2020, and neither organization reported a large change from the previous year. The CDC says there were 620,327 abortions nationally in 2020 in the District of Columbia and 47 states, a 1.5% decrease from 629,898 in 2019. Guttmacher’s national total for 2020 was 930,160, a 1.5% increase from 916,460 in 2019. These abortion numbers are significantly lower than the over 1.5 million abortions in 1991. It is reported that in the first year since the Dobbs decision June 24, 2022 overturning Roe v Wade, the abortion rate in the U.S. dropped 6%, reducing the number of abortions by over 55,000.

In 2020, about one in five pregnancies in the U.S. ended in abortion. 53% of all abortions were by abortion pills.

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