One abortion on average is carried out every day at one of the country’s leading maternity hospitals in 2019, the first full year of operation of the country’s new abortion law.
Master of the Rotunda Maternity hospital in Dublin, Fergal Malone, estimated that between 300 and 400 abortions have been carried out in the Rotunda alone over the past 12 months. He said that roughly seven take place every week, with two of these being for apparent fatal abnormalities. Many are performed on the healthy babies of healthy mothers. About 8,500 births take place at the Rotunda each year.
Each abortion would have occurred at the ninth week or later, as abortions prior to that are initiated at GP surgeries. He admitted that the ‘vast majority’ of abortions are facilitated by GPs via the abortion pill.
Official figures of the total number of abortions carried out in 2019 have not yet been released.
Dr Malone also revealed that one of the main challenges at the Rotunda was when pill-induced abortions failed to complete and the women require scans and follow-up treatment in hospital.
