| Verified against primary record | |
| Counted travel | 745 abortions to non-residents in England and Wales, 2022[1] |
|---|---|
| Change after a law changed | Irish residents fell from 2,879 in 2018 to 206 in 2021[1] |
| Records read | Statutory notification statistics for two jurisdictions, 30 September 2026 |
| Independently reported | |
| United States | About 19 per cent of patients travelled out of state in the first half of 2023, method not stated on the source page[2] |
| Bands apply only to the rows beneath them. The English and Welsh figures count only legal procedures performed there, so they are a floor rather than a total. | |
Abortion travel describes journeys undertaken to obtain a termination of pregnancy in a jurisdiction other than the one where the person lives, because the procedure is unlawful, restricted, or unavailable in practice at home. This entry sets out the law and the measured data. It takes no position on the underlying policy question.
The topic is unusual within medical travel in one important respect. Almost every other sector relies on estimates, surveys and industry projections. Here, at least in one jurisdiction, the travel is counted, because it is recorded on statutory notification forms.
Counted travel
Official statistics for England and Wales record abortions to women resident elsewhere. In 2022 there were 251,377 abortions for residents and 745 for women recorded as residing outside England and Wales, of whom most came from the Irish Republic at 27 per cent, Scotland at 24 per cent and Northern Ireland at 23 per cent.[1]
The series shows what happens to travel when the law at the origin changes. Abortions to residents of the Irish Republic numbered 2,879 in 2018, 206 in 2021 and 201 in 2022. Those to residents of Northern Ireland numbered 1,855 at their 1990 peak, 905 in 2012, 161 in 2021 and 172 in 2022.[1] The official commentary attributes the 93 per cent fall between 2018 and 2021 to the change in Irish law together with pandemic travel restrictions, and both causes should be carried whenever the figure is quoted.
The corresponding domestic series exists on the other side. Ireland’s Department of Health publishes annual notifications under the legislation introduced after the 2018 referendum, under which the expanded service commenced on 1 January 2019. For 2022 it recorded 8,156 notified terminations: 8,042 in early pregnancy under twelve weeks, 88 where a condition was likely to lead to the death of the foetus, 22 on grounds of risk to life or health, and 4 in an emergency.[3]
One limit should be stated plainly. These counts capture only legal procedures performed and notified in the recording jurisdiction. They cannot capture people who travelled elsewhere, obtained medication outside a clinical setting, or did not travel at all. They are a floor.
Travel within a country
Where law varies within a single state, the same pattern appears as domestic travel. Research on the United States reports that approximately 19 per cent of abortion patients travelled out of their state of residence in the first six months of 2023, about 92,100 patients, against approximately 10 per cent and about 40,600 in the first half of 2020. The largest recorded destinations were Illinois with 18,870 out-of-state patients, New Mexico with 8,230, Florida with 5,780 and Colorado with 3,990.[2]
These are not statutory notification counts and the publishing page does not state whether the figures are counted, sampled or modelled. The rounding pattern is consistent with estimation. They should be presented as reported estimates rather than as headcounts until the method is established, and they exclude self-managed abortion and do not address provision by telemedicine.
The health framing
The World Health Organization, publishing its 2022 guideline on abortion care, stated that over 25 million unsafe abortions occur each year and around 39,000 deaths result, with over 60 per cent of unsafe procedures in Africa and 30 per cent in Asia, and that in countries where abortion is most restricted only one in four abortions is safe, against nearly nine in ten where the procedure is broadly legal. It reported that about 20 countries provide no legal grounds, and that more than three in four countries attach legal penalties.[4] The organisation’s stated position is that restricting access does not reduce the number of procedures but makes them less safe.
The 25 million and 39,000 figures carry no reference year on the source consulted and are themselves derived from statistical modelling of events that are under-reported by definition. They are estimates, and differ in kind from the notification counts above.
See also
- Medical travel for unavailable treatments, the broader category of travel driven by availability
- Domestic medical tourism, where the relevant border is internal
- Fertility tourism, the other reproductive field where eligibility law drives travel
- Medical tourism and health equity, for who is able to travel when law differs
References
- Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Department of Health and Social Care. Abortion statistics, England and Wales: 2022. Released 23 May 2024, page updated 15 January 2026. Verified against primary record: official statutory notification statistics opened and read. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Guttmacher Institute. The High Toll of US Abortion Bans: Nearly One in Five Patients Now Traveling Out of State for Abortion Care. Published December 2023; reference period first six months of 2023. Independently reported: research institute publication; the page does not state whether figures are counted or modelled. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Department of Health, Ireland. Notifications in accordance with Section 20 of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018. Figures cited are for reference year 2022. Verified against primary record: official notification statistics opened and read. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- World Health Organization. Access to safe abortion critical for health of women and girls. 9 March 2022, issued with the abortion care guideline. Verified against primary record: institutional release opened and read; the guideline itself was not read for this entry. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
Sourcing note: the statutory notification statistics for England and Wales and for Ireland were opened and read on 30 September 2026, and are the basis for every counted figure here. The United States proportions come from a research institute rather than a statutory return, and the page consulted does not state the method, so they are labelled as estimates. The 93 per cent fall in Irish residents is given with both causes the official commentary attributes it to. The global unsafe abortion figures are modelled estimates without a stated reference year and are separated from the counted data. The Irish publication page and the document retrieved from it differ in the year they present, so the reference year of the notification figures is stated explicitly and should be confirmed by an editor.