FOI REF: FOI/2023/5092
You asked
I would like to know the number of deaths involving abortion, in England and Wales, for the years 2020 and 2021.
we said
Thank you for your request.
Our mortality data comes from the information collected at the point of death registration. All the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). From all of these causes an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules.
The underlying cause of death is defined by World Health Organisation (WHO) as:
a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury
The ICD-10 cause codes used are:
O04 Medical abortion
O05 Other abortion
O06 Unspecified abortion
O07 Failed attempted abortion
O08 Complications following abortion and ectopic and molar pregnancy
We hold the following user requested dataset including underlying cause and mentions which shows the information requested: Number of deaths involving abortion, England and Wales, deaths registered between 2015 and 2019
We can update the above dataset to include 2020 and 2021 data as a user requested dataset via our bespoke services. Such extracts are subject to disclosure control, resources, legal frameworks, and agreement to costs under the ONS Charging policy. If you would like to obtain a quote for this work, please contact the Health Analysis and Pandemic Insight (HAPI) Customer Service team at Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
Please note, our NOMIS webservice reports zero deaths where abortion was the underlying cause in 2020 and 2021 registered in England and Wales, however, to protect the confidentiality of individuals, small counts are rounded; counts of 0, 1, and 2 are rounded to 0.