New figures released to Independent TD Carol Nolan have suggested that there were up to 10,000 abortions in Ireland last year, an almost 23 per cent increase on the number performed in 2022.
Carol Nolan TD told Gript that the numbers of abortions to the end of November suggested Ireland was “within breathing distance of the horrendous rubicon of 10,000 abortions in 2023,” an almost 23% leap again from 2022, a year which had also seen a dramatic increase compared to 2021, when 4,577 abortions took place.
The figures, seen by this publication, confirm that 9,218 payments were made for ‘combined termination procedure and aftercare’ to GP in the eleven months to end November 2023.
A much larger number of payments – 11,126 – were paid in respect of a first abortion consultation, but it seems that almost 2,000 women were not recorded as returning for the second visit, when abortion pills are given, the pro-life group Life Institute noted.
They data also reveals that 405 doctors were reimbursed for abortion consultations from 1st January 2019 to 30th November 2023.
Commenting on the increase, Deputy Carol Nolan said Ireland is now facing an “epidemic,” adding that there is an “under-promotion” of alternatives.
“This is now an epidemic of loss,” she said.
“Thousands of women are being betrayed by the over-promotion of abortion as the only possible response to pregnancy in certain circumstances and the cruel under promotion of life affirming alternatives. I will continue to shine a light on this issue so that women and families are fully supported with the kind of wrap around service provision that will meaningfully assist them in choosing a different path beyond that of abortion.”
The number of yearly abortions has seen an increase since the repeal of Ireland’s eighth amendment. While 6,666 abortions took place in 2019, the first year post-repeal, that number rose to 8,156 in 2022 – sparking fears from pro-life campaigners that the rate would continue to go up.
Megan Ní Scanláin of the Life Institute said today that it was “utterly appalling that the abortion numbers could have spiralled to 10,000 in one year since its introduction in 2019.”
“This is more than three times the number of Irish women who travelled to England for abortions in 2018, the last year that abortion was unlawful in Ireland,” she said. “Clearly women are being made to feel abortion is their only option, but the truth is that this country is now aborting it’s future, and it’s a tragedy for women, for those 10,000 babies who have been killed, and for our country as we drift further and further from the truly caring, life-affirming society we should be trying to build.”
The Life Institute spokeswoman said that the number of abortions had now spiralled to the point where the government needed to deal with the matter as an emergency.
“We’re calling on the government to treat this matter as an emergency and set up a special task force to look at the shockingly high number of abortions and what can be done to tackle that and offer real options to women,” she told Gript.
Despite an upward surge in the number of abortions being performed, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has described it “totally and utterly unacceptable” that all of Ireland’s 19 maternity hospitals were not providing abortions, as he pledged to ensure all would be performing abortions come 2024.
While 11 out of 19 Irish maternity hospitals were carrying out abortions last April, that number has shot up to 17, according to Tánaiste Micheál Martin.
In December, Mr Martin said he was “very open” to recommendations that have been made to change Ireland’s abortion law, which included expanding time limits and widening grounds for abortion.
However, the Fianna Fáil leader admitted that he had an “overriding concern” that certain arguments and criteria were proposed to the Irish public when they voted on the referendum on the Eighth Amendment.
“My overriding concern is that the referendum that the people passed, and there was a set of criteria, conditions put before the people, both the referendum itself and the legislation, including the review,” he said before Christmas, adding:
“We can’t dismiss the fact that we put certain arguments before the people at a given time, not so long ago, and people voted on the basis of those arguments.”
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Abortion is murder pure and simple. If it was 10,000 dogs or cats there would be an outcry. What have we come to?
As we murder our own and make ouselves into minorities in our own country, why not just hand it over to the refugees?
I wonder if we could get socio economic data on the reasons for such a high level.?
It’s not as though people don’t have access to contraceptives and even the ” morning after” pull. That said all life is sacred from the moment of conception
If you had said all this to me 2 years ago, I would not have cared. Now I’m against it because I know it’s about depopulation.
Very sad news but hardly unexpected. Government promotion of abortion is never ending.It’s certainly not rare as was put forward in the referendum. It’s really following what the No side ,said would happen.Another legacy for FG and their fellow travellers.
What was one of the slogans? “Safe, legal and rare” or something like that
Our ignorant and Godless Government don’t understand the meaning of Democracy; allowing in law the evil of murder of our future under the name of abortion does not mean eliminating the already existing facilities for care and assistance in the births of our future family and community members.
Our evil Government must go now!
At this rate more babies will die unnecessarily in Ireland than in Gaza but Micheál Martin appears to be far more concerned about Gaza. This looks to me like hypocrisy.
We want to know the break-down! How many Irish kids were aborted? Like it or not, we do feel instinctively more for the Irish! They are our countrymen and women! What did the Irish state do to help these women with their issues? Did any of these women feel pressure from the state to abort their babies? The girls should be given all available options. We know of the unholy-alignment this regime has with the WEF and such idiots as Justin Castro!
So that is why there is no rush with completing the children’s hospital. Ireland is too busy eliminating any future potential patients.
Abort and Import………………..the Irish public have actively sanctioned the murder of innocence in utero…………….reap what you sow Ireland. You have opened the portal to the realm of wickedness and the demonic…………the spiritual veil of protection no longer applies
Maybe it’s just a sign of the times, money’s tight so more people are worried about having a roof over their heads. Difficult choices have to be made by responsible adults around bringing children into the world.
Are you justifying abortion because money’s tight? There is a dizzying array of contraceptives available in Ireland for decades now. It’s not a new thing.
Brett Weinstein is right. We have people in charge who hate their children
My best friend, and his two siblings were all adopted. I know one of them was from an Irish mother in England who got pregnant out of wedlock and felt she couldn’t raise a child on her own. God bless his parents for adopting them and raising a wonderful family who have gone on to do great things
Availing of legal services is a hallmark of modern democracy. If you think something is legally amiss then take a case to one of our venerable legal assemblies.
Edward is perfectly fine with babies being hacked to pieces in the womb while still alive. As long as it’s legal
I think women have the right to choose what to do with there own body the right that someone that won’t take any of the vacinne jabs has. It’s your body your choice. If you want to stop people having a choice what happens with their own body. Then we go down the route of making vaccines compulsory
“I think women have the right to choose what to do with there own body”
You don’t think that actually. The reason you didn’t think this thought and come to your own conclusion is those very words are the slogan that was used in the run up to the abortion referendum. The same sentence is used around the world in pro-abortion propaganda. So, you never really thought about it. You are just parroting a slogan to conform. If you did actually stop and really think about it, you’d realise that a baby in the womb, a foetus, is a growing, living, unique individual still reliant on it’s mother for sustenance until birth and then afterwards for many years – some do survive being born premature, and with modern medical care survive as young as approx. 20 weeks which is younger than many babies that are aborted around the world. A baby in the womb has it’s own unique DNA profile, taken from both it’s father and mother, it’s own unique soul, if you believe we all have a soul and is on the path to becoming a fully grown adult , just at a very early stage of development. It’s not a ‘part’ of the mother’s body. It’s its own body that is growing each day while being nurtured and sustained by it’s mother during pregnancy as it grows to the point it’s ready to live outside the womb. Assuming you wouldn’t endorse hacking a one day old baby to death, cutting the baby alive into pieces, how could you justify hacking a baby that’s due to be born in one day’s time? Or two days time? Or three days time? Or three weeks time? At what point do you justify hacking a baby to death in the womb? Because that’s what happened when a living baby in the womb is aborted
That’s exactly what I think. What person in this world has the right to tell someone else what they can and can’t do with their own body??
You haven’t thought about it. You ‘believe’ that you think that. But you didn’t ‘think’ this thought yourself. You were programmed with this belief. You should read my comment above again. Slowly, a number of times. The go away and think about it, objectively. Don’t just come on here with another knee jerk comment as a means to protect your ego. The baby in a mother’s womb is NOT HER BODY or a PART OF HER BODY. They baby is its own body, it’s own person. It’s ok to be wrong about something, to have faulty thinking. But it’s important to correct faulty thinking. Lives depend on it.
You’ve confirmed again you haven’t thought this through by saying “ What person in this world has the right to tell someone else what they can and can’t do with their own body??”. You are just parroting propaganda like a robot, without actually doing any thinking for yourself. If you were to agree that a baby is its own person, and not a ‘body part’ but that you still think it’s ok to kill it though aborting it before it’s due to be born, then I’d have respect for your thinking. At least it would be an original thought.
Plenty people have the right to tell someone else what they can and can’t do with their own body. This is coded in law and enforced by state authorities all over the world. A person that tries to harm themselves can be prevented by doing so. A child by it’s mother or father. An adult by the state authorities i.e. the police or health service can forcibly and legally prevent someone doing harm to their body
You have me laughing now. So what I believe is only because what someone else said but What you are saying is the gospel. Twice you have told me I don’t really believe what I said and twice I will tel you it’s exactly what I think.
I’m not asking you to believe me at all. If you read my second comment, I suggested that you ‘think’. Objectively. I’d like for you to actually form your own thoughts, independent of what I or anyone else tells you. That takes ‘thinking’. Not passively absorbing what someone else tells you. Think it through. I made the mistake of hand holding and taking you through the process, apologies on my part.
As I said, if you come to the conclusion that you are happy for a baby in the womb to be killed, then I’d respect what you have to say. You have said people should have the right to do what they want with their own body. Where does the right of the baby to do what they like with their own body come in when it comes to abortion? The defensive wounds found from the instruments use to kill a baby in the womb during an abortion suggest they are not A-okay with being cut to pieces and killed
Of course every individual has the right to choose with regards to their own body, the inconvenient truth here is that, with abortion, it’s not their body that’s being exterminated…..follow the science !!
I think everyone understand the issue of legal vs illegal, and that abortion is now legal in Ireland.
But abortion has always been primarily a moral question, especially for Christians (and Ireland is, or maybe was is better today) a Christian (Catholic) nation — just because something is (now) legal, does not change the fundamental question of whether it is morally right, and making something legal certainly does not make it morally right.
Why bother with such a comment?
Let me put it this way: abortion was illegal because it is considered immoral, a violation of one of the Ten Commandments — abortion is now legal — but nothing else has changed: it’s still immoral.
One ought to contemplate the ethos of a society that has managed to break what ought to be the strongest bond of all: that between a mother and her unborn child.