Last year 163 abortions were carried out on women in the Island – nearly half the number when the Termination of Pregnancy Law was first passed by the States in 1997.
It represents a ten per cent drop on the number carried out in the previous year and a 30 per cent drop from 2012.
The report, published by the Health Department, showed that Jersey’s abortion rate of 8.3 operations per 1,000 women was significantly lower than the 16.5 per 1,000 of England and Wales and the 11.0 per 1,000 of Scotland.
It also showed a slight drop in Jersey’s under 18 abortion rate, with 4.8 per 1,000 recorded in 2013 in comparison to three per 1,000 last year.
Of the terminations carried out in 2014, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) were a woman’s first abortion, while almost a quarter of those having a repeat abortion were aged under 25 – a slightly lower percentage than in the UK.
In terms of the timescale, four-fifths (83%) of abortions were conducted before the tenth week of pregnancy.
Meanwhile, half of all abortions were carried out for single women, with 28 per cent carried out on co-habiting women and 18 per cent carried out for married women.
In a statement explaining the reason behind the low abortion rates, the Health Department said: ‘In Jersey we have very low teenage conception rates so, consequently there will be fewer terminations for teenagers. There tend to be fewer teenage conceptions in higher socio-economic areas such as Jersey – the UK has a more mixed socio-economic profile so will be higher.
The department also confirmed that the number of young women having a repeat abortion was not a concern.
‘Almost a quarter of those having a repeat abortion were under 25 (23% in Jersey) – this is little different to the UK (27 % in 2014).’
