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Abortion Rights “celebrate” 6,700 lives lost to abortion in Ireland last year

Figures released from the Department of Health in Ireland earlier this week report that there were approximately 6,700 abortions in Ireland in 2021. The report claims that a cyber attack in 2021 means that the precise figures are not currently available.

Pro-abortion organisation Abortion Rights Campaign issued a press release headlined “ARC celebrates 6700 people accessing abortion care”. The release then went onto state that the group “welcomes the news that at least 6,700 people were able to access safe and legal abortion within Ireland last year”.

In addition to celebrating the number of abortions that had taken place in Ireland, the group also called for “more and better abortion provision”. They are currently attempting to have the three-day waiting period for abortions removed, allow more late-term abortions for babies with disabilities to happen and want the Irish Government to investigate “why so many maternity hospitals and GPs refuse to provide abortion care”.

In 2019, 6,666 abortions were performed in Ireland. 6,577 abortions were performed in 2020. This takes the total number of abortions reported in Ireland since legalisation to 19,943.

A national tragedy

While the Abortion Rights Campaign has “celebrated” this news, Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign said:

“Following today’s devastating news that 19,943 abortions have occurred in Ireland since the new law came into effect, we need an urgent public debate to look for ways to dramatically reduce these numbers”.

“Senior politicians including Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin repeatedly assured voters that abortion would be ‘rare’ should the 2018 referendum be passed. Clearly, this is not what happened”.

Spokeswoman for the Life Institute, Megan Ní Scealláin, said that it was “disturbing” that the Minister for Health was conducting a review of the operation of the abortion act without acknowledging the “shocking rise in the number of abortions since law came into operation in 2019”.

She added: “There is no acknowledgment that terrible mistakes have happened such as the abortion of a baby boy in the National Maternity Hospital after a misdiagnosis. There is no investigation into why we’re seeing a dramatic increase in women seeking abortions abroad because the baby has Down Syndrome”.

The three-day waiting period must be retained

These figures have come out just weeks after a campaign to retain the three-day waiting period before undergoing an abortion was launched. Speaking of the campaign at the recent Rally for Life, Scealláin said:

“Voters were guaranteed that women would have a three-day period to reflect between a first abortion appointment and the doctor giving the abortion pill, and it is appalling to see abortion campaigners now push to have that time to think scrapped”.

“We know from figures released to Carol Nolan TD that between 800 and 1,000 women did not proceed with an abortion after that initial appointment. Scrapping the requirement for those three days to think might mean another 1,000 abortions a year”.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “The number of abortions in Ireland is utterly tragic. It is especially distressing that the people of Ireland voted to introduce abortion by a two to one majority”.

“However,  the United States, which had 49 years of abortion before that unjust law was overturned, shows that dramatic change is possible”.

Urgent appeal 
to save liveS

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help build on the momentum from the defeat of the assisted suicide Bill and make this victory last.

Dear reader,

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like you across the UK, after a two-year battle, MPs voted by 286 to 270 to reject the Edwards assisted suicide Bill.

This followed the defeat of the McArthur assisted suicide Bill in Scotland by 69 to 57 in March this year.

Many commentators thought both Bills would become law.

If that had happened, this would have led to the deaths of many thousands of vulnerable people over the coming decades.

Because supporters like you acted, those Bills were stopped.

Because of you, many vulnerable lives have been saved.

A prominent pollster described the campaign against these major attempts to introduce assisted suicide, which brought together people from all walks of life across the UK, as one of the “most successful 21st Century UK social issue campaigns”. You helped make that possible.

WHY WE MUST NOT STOP HERE

What we have achieved together is extraordinary. But we must not rest on our laurels.

Dignity in Dying, a multi-million-pound pressure group, has made clear that it will keep campaigning to legalise assisted suicide. 

We cannot wait until another Bill is brought forward. We need to keep pressing for better care and strengthen the case against legalisation now.

WHAT COMES NEXT

The next phase of our Support Not Suicide campaign will operate across Parliament, media, online and in grassroots communities in every constituency across the United Kingdom.

Our focus now is to build on that momentum from the defeat of these assisted suicide Bills and make these victories last.

We want to build a United Kingdom where assisted suicide is seen as unnecessary – and where legalising it is seen as unthinkable.

The first part of that work is a sustained push for universal access to high-quality palliative, hospice and social care. No one should feel driven towards assisted suicide because they cannot get the care and support they need. 

We have already asked supporters to contact their MPs about improving care. With your help, we will keep that pressure on in every constituency, brief MPs and Peers on gaps in care, and make the case for better provision in the media.

The second part is building on these wins to ensure more MPs and more of the wider public understand the dangers of legalising assisted suicide. We will put evidence of those risks before MPs and Peers. We will work with mainstream journalists to bring the voices of people directly affected, doctors and other experts into the national conversation, and produce clear videos and articles that supporters can share online and in their communities.

Our network of 250,000 supporters covers every constituency in the UK. Thanks to people like you sharing our content, our posts and videos have been viewed more than 100 million times online in the last year. 

We want to utilise that massive reach for this next phase of the campaign.

WE CAN ONLY DO THIS WITH YOUR HELP

The two-year fight to stop these Bills drew heavily on our limited resources.

To replenish those resources and fund the next phase of the Support Not Suicide campaign, we aim to raise at least £199,250 by midnight this Sunday (4 October 2026).

We are, therefore, appealing to you to please give as generously as you can today.

Every donation, large or small, will make a crucial difference in protecting vulnerable lives. Plus, if you are a UK taxpayer, £1 becomes £1.25 with Gift Aid at no extra cost to you.

Will you donate now to help make these victories last and protect vulnerable lives?

Urgent appeal 
to save liveS

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help build on the momentum from the defeat of the assisted suicide Bill and make this victory last.