Abortions in Ireland top 10,000 for third year in a row

Abortions in Ireland have surpassed 10,000 for the third year in a row, with almost 60,000 babies killed since abortion was liberalised in 2019.

According to the Department of Health, there were 10,600 abortions in 2025. All but two per cent of these took place under 12 weeks, when women can abort their child for any reason and even carry it out at home.

The Health Service Executive’s first report on the provision of abortion services revealed that 46,861 babies were killed between 2019 and 2024, bringing the total current number of abortions to 57,461.

Intolerable

Pro Life Campaign spokeswoman Eilís Mulroy stated: “The fact that 10,600 abortions occurred in Ireland in a single year is a very sobering indictment of how Ireland’s abortion regime is operating. It means that 1 in every 6 babies in Ireland now loses their life to abortion.”

She criticised the Government for creating this “truly intolerable situation”, where “State-funded agencies responsible for addressing unplanned pregnancy operate as a de facto fast-track service to abortion” and women “describe feeling rushed, pressured, or carried along by the process”.

“What’s happening today is abortion on a completely different scale from what senior politicians like Micheál Martin and Simon Harris promised the public would happen if they voted for ‘Repeal’ in 2018.

“Yet in recent months, the only changes in which these leaders have shown any interest are proposals that would lead to still more abortions, not less – their support for the removal of the three-day reflection period being a case in point.”

Reflection period

Last month, TDs voted 86 to 70 in favour of scrapping the three-day reflection period for an abortion. The Sinn Féin Bill will now be considered by an Oireachtas committee.

Independent Deputy Carol Nolan expressed astonishment at “the moral incoherence of a party that claims to care about Ireland’s future while actively working to ensure that thousands of Irish children will never have one”.

Michael Healy-Rae, also an Independent, questioned why politicians were in “such a rush” to dismantle an important safeguard, especially as it had been presented to voters as a check and balance in the legislation to legalise abortion following the 2018 referendum.

Between 2019 and 2024, according to HSE data, over 10,000 women who had requested an abortion did not return to see their GP to go through with it following the three-day reflection period.