A new bill proposing a law change that requires the Government to report on the full extent of complications arising from abortion, including complications from abortions where parts of the unborn baby are left in the mother’s womb, has been launched in the House of Lords.
Yesterday afternoon, Lord Moylan’s Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill received its First Reading in the House of Lords.The Bill proposes a change to the law that would require the Department of Health and Social Care to publish an annual report on medical complications from abortions.
Incomplete abortions – when some of the unborn baby or pregnancy tissue is left inside the womb of the mother after an abortion – are currently omitted from the annual abortion statistics leading to a potentially inaccurate account of the complication rate arising from abortion. This is despite the fact that the Department of Health and Social Care states that “incomplete abortions are usually characterised by complications such as bleeding and abdominal pain”.
Government review shows abortion complication rates likely much higher than being reported by abortion providers
The gaps in the abortion data first came to light in a Department of Health and Social Care review released in November 2023.
This Government review, which was described as a “one-time analysis”, revealed that abortion complication rates are likely much higher than has been previously reported in the annual abortion statistics, which are based on reporting from abortion providers.
Lord Moylan’s Bill would require a similar report to be published each year. The annual report would be required to include data from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), which are not currently published in the annual abortion statistics complication data reporting.
The review analysed the HES for England from the years 2017 to 2021. It compared the complication rate derived from this analysis to the currently reported complications rate derived from the Abortion Notification System (ANS) that relies on data provided by abortion providers, and which is reported in the annual abortion statistics.
The review found the ANS-derived data shows an average complication rate over the 5 years from 2017-2021 of 1.52 per 1,000 abortions whereas their analysis of HES data over the same period showed a complication rate of 4.06, over 2.6 times higher than the ANS data that is reported in the annual abortion statistics.
When their HES data analysis also included incomplete abortions, the complication rate over the same period was 18.16, which is over 11.9 times higher than the ANS-derived complication rate that does not include incomplete abortions.
The difference in reported complications rate was much higher for women under 20 than for the general population. For women under 20, the HES-derived complication rate was 4.43 times higher than the ANS-derived complication rate, compared to 2.67 times higher for the general population. When the HES data analysis also included incomplete abortion, for under 20s the HES-derived complication rate was 17.43 times higher than the ANS-derived complication rate, compared to 11.95 times for the general population.
The review also identified that abortion providers were not recording complications that happened after discharge or after the form that they were recorded on was sent to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The OHID noted that there was “no evidence” when the review was undertaken in 2022 that abortion providers were informing the (DHSC) to ensure the data was updated when a woman informed the abortion provider about a complication that occurred after the form had been sent.
The review also noted that complications may be less likely to be recorded for terminations where either both or one of the abortion medications is administered at home, because it is unlikely that the person filling in the HSA4 form will know if the woman experienced a complication following an abortion.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “A Government review published last year revealed that abortion complication rates are likely much higher than has been previously reported in the annual abortion statistics, which are based on reporting from abortion providers”.
“The new Government needs to urgently introduce measures to ensure that abortion complications data is accurately collected and reliably reported on”.
“While it is rare for Lords Private Members’ Bills to become law, this Bill will ensure that the issue of complication rate underreporting is put on the radar and debated extensively in Parliament, the media and wider society. This will help raise the profile of this major issue and put pressure on the Government to ensure that abortion complications data is accurately collected and reliably reported on”.
