Abortion Statistics in Australia 2026 | Rates, Causes & Key Facts

Abortion Statistics in Australia 2026 | Rates, Causes & Key Facts

Abortion in Australia 2026

Australia in 2026 is a nation where abortion is legal in every state and territory, fully decriminalised, and funded through a combination of Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) — yet where access remains deeply uneven, shaped by geography, provider availability, cost, and a patchwork of state-level regulations that no single national framework governs. The most recent wave of legislative reform has reshaped the landscape: New South Wales decriminalised abortion in October 2019, Queensland followed, and Tasmania’s reforms in September 2023 removed abortion entirely from the criminal code, eliminated mandatory parental notification for minors, reduced multi-doctor sign-off requirements, and raised the gestational limit at which additional approvals apply from 20 weeks to 23 weeks. The ACT became the first jurisdiction to offer no-cost abortions to residents from April 2023, and in June 2024 extended prescribing rights to nurses and midwives. At the federal level, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) deregulated MS-2 Step prescribing and dispensing from 1 August 2023, meaning any trained GP or qualified healthcare practitioner can now prescribe, and any pharmacy can dispense, the medical abortion drug combination without the certification requirements that previously restricted access to a narrow pool of providers.

The challenge in presenting Australia abortion statistics in 2026 is one of data architecture as much as policy analysis. Unlike countries with national abortion registries, Australia has no mandatory national reporting system for abortions. South Australia is the only state to publish comprehensive annual abortion data through a dedicated Abortion Reporting Committee. Western Australia publishes periodic data. New South Wales published its first abortion total — for the 2022–23 financial year — only recently. The remaining states and territories — Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, the ACT, and the Northern Territory — have no mandatory reporting at all, making any national estimate necessarily a triangulation exercise drawing on Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) procedure data, PBS prescription records for MS-2 Step, state-level hospital data, and population-adjusted extrapolations. The best available estimate for total annual abortions in Australia, drawing on the most recent data and the methodology developed by the Medical Journal of Australia (2021), places the national figure in the range of approximately 65,000 to 90,000 abortions per year, with a central estimate often cited at around 75,000–80,000 — a range that has been relatively stable across the 2020s though shifting in composition toward an ever-larger proportion of medical (medication) abortions.

Key Facts: Abortion Statistics in Australia 2026

Fact Data
Estimated total abortions annually (national, best estimate) ~75,000–80,000
MJA peer-reviewed estimate for 2017–18 88,287
Abortion rate (MJA estimate, 2017–18) 17.3 per 1,000 women aged 15–44
Extrapolated national total (2023, based on SA, WA & NSW data) ~63,900 (partial states = 49% of population)
South Australia abortions (2024 — most recent complete state data) 4,725
South Australia abortions (2023) 5,003
South Australia: share of pregnancies ending in abortion (2024) ~20%
Western Australia abortions (2022 — most recent WA data) 8,545
New South Wales abortions (2022–23 financial year — first ever reported) 17,740
Legal status nationally Decriminalised in all 8 states and territories
Year abortion fully decriminalised in last jurisdiction (Tasmania) 2024 (reforms took effect 27 March 2024)
MS-2 Step PBS deregulation date (any GP, any pharmacy) 1 August 2023
MS-2 Step gestational limit Up to 63 days (9 weeks) from last menstrual period
Medical abortion share of procedures (SA, 2024) 61%
Surgical abortion share (SA, 2024) 31% vacuum aspiration / D&C
SA abortions in hospital (2024) 10%
SA abortions in clinic (2024) 84%
SA abortions in doctor’s office (2024) 5%
Abortions in first 14 weeks — SA 2024 91%
Abortions after 22 weeks and 6 days — SA 2024 48
WA abortions in first 12 weeks (2022) 93%
NSW abortions in hospitals (2023) 20%
Most common age group for abortion (SA and WA) Women aged 20–24 (highest rate per 1,000)
Teenagers under 15 — share of SA abortions (2024) 0.1%
Women aged 15–19 — share of SA abortions (2024) 9.7%
Safe access zones (exclusion around clinics) 150 metres in all jurisdictions
ACT: cost to residents from April 2023 Free (no cost)
Complications rate (SA 2024) 4.0% (most common: retained products of conception)
Complications requiring hospitalisation (severe) — SA 2024 Rare
SA abortions performed for “mental health” reasons (elective) 95%
SA abortions for fetal abnormality 4%
SA abortions for medical reasons 1%
Historical total SA abortions since 1970 ~245,000

Sources: South Australian Abortion Reporting Committee, Annual Report 2024 (April 30, 2025); Department of Health Western Australia, Induced Abortions in Western Australia 2022; NSW Health, Abortion reporting data 2022–23; Medical Journal of Australia, “Estimating the abortion rate in Australia from National Hospital Morbidity and PBS data,” August 2021; Therapeutic Goods Administration, MS-2 Step prescribing deregulation (July 11, 2023, effective August 1, 2023); Wikipedia — Abortion in Australia (updated June 2026); Abort73.com — Australian Abortion Statistics (updated February 26, 2026); Healthdirect Australia — MS-2 Step (2025)

The key facts behind Australia’s 2026 abortion statistics reveal a system undergoing fundamental transformation in how, where, and under what rules abortion is accessed — even as the total number of procedures has remained broadly stable for over a decade. The most consequential change is the TGA’s August 2023 deregulation of MS-2 Step prescribing, which removed the certification requirements that had limited prescribing to a small registered pool of medical practitioners. Since that date, any trained GP or qualified healthcare practitioner can prescribe and any pharmacy can dispense medical abortion medication — a change the Medical Journal of Australia described as potentially the most significant improvement in abortion access since the drug was first listed on the PBS. The practical effect, already visible in South Australia’s data showing 61% of abortions performed medically in 2024, is to accelerate the shift from surgical to medical abortion and from clinic and hospital settings to primary care.

The data gap at the national level is the defining methodological challenge of Australian abortion statistics in 2026. The 2021 MJA peer-reviewed estimate of 88,287 total abortions in 2017–18 — equivalent to 17.3 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 — remains the most robust national figure, and the methodology (combining National Hospital Morbidity data with PBS prescription records for MS-2 Step) has not been formally replicated for more recent years with the same rigour. The partial-state extrapolation approach — using South Australia, Western Australia, and New South Wales data (representing 49% of Australia’s population) to estimate a national total of approximately 63,900 for 2023 — provides a directional indicator but almost certainly underestimates the true total, since the methodology does not fully capture medical abortions dispensed outside the reporting systems of those three states. Both the Australian Senate (in its 2023 inquiry into universal access to reproductive healthcare) and leading reproductive health researchers have called for a national abortion registry to resolve this data deficit — and as of 2026, no such registry has been established.


Australia Estimated Total Abortions — Historical Trend

Estimated Annual Abortions in Australia (National Best Estimates)
2003      |████████████████████████████████████████| ~91,000 (peak estimate)
2010      |█████████████████████████████████████   | ~82,000
2014-15   |████████████████████████████████████    | ~80,000 (est.)
2017-18   |█████████████████████████████████████   |  88,287 (MJA peer-reviewed)
2019      |████████████████████████████████████    | ~80,000–85,000 (est.)
2022      |████████████████████████████████████    | ~75,000–80,000 (est.)
2023      |████████████████████████████████████    | ~63,900 (partial data) / ~75K–80K (est.)
          |------+------+------+------+------+------|
          0   15,000 30,000 45,000 60,000 75,000 90,000
Year / Period Estimated Total Abortions Source / Method
1985 ~70,000 (est.) MJA (Chan & Sage 2005) retrospective estimate
2003 ~84,000–91,000 MJA 2005 peer-reviewed estimate
2004 ~73,000 Medicare procedures Parliamentary Library; includes miscarriages
2014–15 ~80,000 Widely cited; pre-PBS era estimate
2017–18 88,287 MJA 2021 peer-reviewed; NHMD + PBS data
2017–18 rate 17.3 per 1,000 women (15–44) MJA 2021
2022 (WA only) 8,545 WA Dept of Health — complete WA mandatory data
2022–23 (NSW only) 17,740 NSW Health — first NSW published total
2023 (partial: SA + WA + NSW) ~31,288 (representing ~49% of population) Extrapolated national: ~63,900
2024 (SA only) 4,725 SA Abortion Reporting Committee, April 2025

Sources: Medical Journal of Australia, “Estimating the abortion rate in Australia” (August 2021); Chan A and Sage LC, MJA 2005; Parliamentary Library of Australia, “How many abortions are there in Australia?”; South Australian Abortion Reporting Committee, 2024 Annual Report; WA Department of Health; NSW Health; Abort73.com — Australian Abortion Statistics (February 26, 2026)

The historical trajectory of abortion totals in Australia is one of gradual decline from a peak in the early 2000s, followed by a period of relative stability at around 75,000–88,000 per year through the 2010s and into the 2020s, with compositional shifts in method and setting that are arguably more significant than the volume trend. The 2021 MJA estimate of 88,287 for 2017–18 — which combined hospital admissions data with PBS prescription records in a methodology independently validated by the journal’s peer reviewers — is the most credible single data point in the national record, and sits somewhat higher than the “often-cited estimate of 80,000” that has been widely used in policy discussions. The difference reflects the improved capture of outpatient medical abortions that the MJA methodology achieved by incorporating PBS data, suggesting that previous estimates based on hospital admissions alone had been undercounting by roughly 10–12%.

From 2018 onward, the MJA methodology has not been fully replicated at the national level, and the data environment has become more complex rather than simpler. The decline in hospital-based surgical abortions has continued steadily — the MJA’s own 2021 paper showed surgical abortions falling from 75,514 in 2014–15 to 67,546 in 2017–18, a mean annual decline of 5.1% — while medical abortion prescriptions surged from 3,220 in 2014–15 to 20,741 in 2017–18. Post-deregulation of MS-2 Step in August 2023, the prescription volume is expected to have accelerated substantially, pulling an increasing share of abortions entirely out of the hospital data and into the primary care record — where, unless PBS data is comprehensively linked to an abortion-specific registry, they become difficult to count precisely. South Australia’s data confirming that 61% of abortions were medical in 2024 provides strong directional evidence that this shift has continued at pace.


South Australia Abortion Statistics 2024 — The Most Complete State Data

South Australia Abortion Data 2024 (Official Annual Report)
Total abortions       |████████████████████████████████████| 4,725
Medical abortion      |█████████████████████████████       |  61%
Surgical (vac/D&C)    |████████████████                    |  31%
Other surgical        |██                                  |   8%
In abortion clinic    |██████████████████████████████████  |  84%
In hospital           |█████                               |  10%
Doctor's office       |███                                 |   5%
Under 14 weeks        |████████████████████████████████████|  91%
14–22 weeks           |██████                              |   8%
After 22 wk 6 days    |                                    |  48 cases
                      |-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------|
                      0%   20%  40%  60%  80% 100% (or absolute)
SA Abortion Metric (2024) Value Change vs 2023
Total abortions 4,725 Down from 5,003 (−5.6%)
Share of pregnancies ending in abortion ~20% Down from 21%
Medical abortion (MS-2 Step and other medication) 61% Up from lower share
Surgical abortion (vacuum aspiration / D&C) 31% Declining
Abortions in certified clinic 84%
Abortions in hospital 10%
Abortions in doctor’s office 5%
Abortions before 14 weeks gestation 91%
Abortions after 22 weeks and 6 days 48
Complication rate at time of procedure 4.0% (190 women)
Most common complication Retained products of conception (176 women, 92.6% of all complications)
Counselling information provided 99.9%
GPs / general practitioners conducting procedures (2024) 94.3% of all procedures Up from 91.4% in 2023
Abortions conducted for elective / mental health reasons 95%
Abortions for fetal abnormality 4%
Abortions for medical (physical health) reasons 1%
Metropolitan residents 81% of all abortions

Sources: South Australian Abortion Reporting Committee, Annual Report for the Year 2024 (published April 30, 2025); Preventive Health SA (preventivehealth.sa.gov.au); Abort73.com — Australian Abortion Statistics (February 26, 2026)

South Australia’s 2024 data is the most detailed, most current, and most rigorously collected abortion dataset in Australia, and it functions as the closest available proxy for national trends. The 4,725 abortions in 2024 represent a 5.6% decline from 2023’s figure of 5,003, continuing a trend of declining absolute numbers in SA that has been broadly attributed to a combination of improved access to long-acting reversible contraception, demographic changes, and the partial effect of earlier, more convenient access to MS-2 Step reducing the number of women who escalate to later-stage procedures. The 91% of all abortions occurring before 14 weeks confirms that the vast majority of procedures are early-stage, and the 61% medical abortion share in 2024 represents a decisive structural shift in how South Australians access termination services — away from surgical procedures in dedicated clinics toward medication-based care that can be initiated in a GP’s consulting room.

The increase in GPs conducting procedures rising from 91.4% to 94.3% in 2024 is one of the most significant single data points in the SA report. It confirms that the TGA’s August 2023 deregulation of MS-2 Step prescribing has taken measurable effect in the data: more procedures are being initiated in general practice settings, and the share of abortions requiring specialist or clinic-based intervention is shrinking. The 48 abortions performed after 22 weeks and 6 days in SA in 2024 — all legally requiring approval from two medical practitioners under SA law — represent the very small proportion of cases where fetal abnormality, serious maternal health risks, or the convergence of late diagnosis with other barriers (including access delays) makes later-term intervention clinically necessary. The 4.0% complication rate, with retained products of conception accounting for 92.6% of all reported complications, reflects outcomes consistent with international benchmarks for safe, well-monitored abortion care.


Australia Abortion by Age Group in 2024

Abortion by Age Group — South Australia 2024 (share of total)
Under 15    |                                     | 0.1%
15–19       |████████                             | 9.7%
20–24       |████████████████████████████████████ | Highest rate per 1,000
25–29       |████████████████████████████████     | Second highest
30–34       |██████████████████████████           | Significant
35–39       |████████████████                     | Rising
40+         |████                                 | Smaller share
            |---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------|
            (Share of total and rate per 1,000 women in age group)
Age Group Share of SA Abortions (2024) National / WA Trend
Under 15 years 0.1% Very small — consistent nationally
15–19 years 9.7% Declining — improved teen contraceptive access
20–24 years Largest age group by abortion rate per 1,000 Highest rate in SA and WA
25–29 years Second highest rate Consistent nationally
30–34 years Significant share — growing Rising in line with delayed childbearing trends
35–39 years Growing share Increasing — older childbearing patterns
40 and over Smaller share Small but non-negligible
Highest abortion rate — both SA and WA Women aged 20–24 Confirmed by both state datasets

Sources: South Australian Abortion Reporting Committee, Annual Report 2024 (April 2025); Department of Health Western Australia, Induced Abortions in WA 2022; Abort73.com — Australian Abortion Statistics (February 26, 2026); Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, comparative international data

The age distribution of abortions in Australia mirrors patterns observed across other high-income countries, with women aged 20–24 recording the highest abortion rate per 1,000 women in their age group in both South Australia and Western Australia — the two jurisdictions with published age-disaggregated data. This reflects the combined effect of high rates of sexual activity, less consistent contraceptive use, lower financial stability, and the greater likelihood of unintended pregnancy in this cohort compared to older women who are more often in stable relationships with planned contraceptive regimes. The 9.7% share attributed to women aged 15–19 in SA in 2024 continues a long-term declining trend for teenage abortions, consistent with improvements in contraceptive education, easier access to long-acting reversible contraception (including IUDs and implants) through publicly funded sexual health services, and the effect of telehealth access to reproductive health consultations.

The growing share of abortions among women in their 30s and early 40s is one of the less-discussed demographic trends in Australian reproductive health data. It reflects a broader social pattern of delayed childbearing in which women are increasingly having their first child in their mid-to-late 30s, with the result that unintended pregnancies later in the reproductive life course are more likely to occur. Research published by the Medical Journal of Australia examining Victorian data found that women who had previously given birth accounted for a significant portion of abortion patients — a finding that underscores how abortion is not exclusively a decision made before first childbirth, but a healthcare service used across a woman’s full reproductive lifespan. The very small share attributed to girls under 15 (just 0.1% in SA in 2024) reflects both the genuine rarity of pregnancy in this cohort and the legal frameworks across all jurisdictions that allow minors to consent to abortion without mandatory parental notification in most states.


Australia Abortion Method: Medical vs Surgical in 2024

Abortion Method Trend in Australia (South Australia data, indicative)
2013 Medical  |                                         | <5%
2015 Medical  |████                                     | ~10%
2018 Medical  |████████████████                         | ~23%
2021 Medical  |██████████████████████████               | ~40%
2023 Medical  |████████████████████████████████         | ~55%
2024 Medical  |████████████████████████████████████     |  61% (SA official)
2024 Surgical |████████████████████                     |  39% (incl. D&C, D&E)
              |-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------|
              0%   10%  20%  30%  40%  50%  60%  70%
Method SA 2024 Share WA 2022 (most recent) National Trend
Medical abortion (MS-2 Step / mifepristone + misoprostol) 61% 33% Rapidly increasing
Vacuum aspiration or D&C (surgical) 31% 51.5% Declining
Dilation and evacuation (D&E, second trimester) ~8% (incl. in surgical) 15% Stable / slight decline
MS-2 Step PBS prescriptions nationally (2014–15) 3,220
MS-2 Step PBS prescriptions nationally (2017–18) 20,741
TGA deregulation effective 1 August 2023
Prescribers post-deregulation Any trained GP, nurse practitioner, midwife
Dispensers post-deregulation Any pharmacy

Sources: South Australian Abortion Reporting Committee, Annual Report 2024; Department of Health WA, Induced Abortions in WA 2022; Medical Journal of Australia, August 2021; Therapeutic Goods Administration, “Amendments to restrictions for prescribing of MS-2 Step” (July 11, 2023); Royal Women’s Hospital Melbourne — About Early Medical Abortion (2025); Medical Journal of Australia, “Equitable access to abortion care is still not a reality in Australia” (February 19, 2024)

The shift from surgical to medical abortion is the defining structural change in Australian abortion care over the past decade. South Australia’s 61% medical abortion share in 2024 — compared to Western Australia’s 33% in 2022 — illustrates both how far this shift has progressed and how it varies across jurisdictions. The divergence between SA and WA partly reflects SA’s historically more liberal approach to prescribing and clinic-based care, but it also reflects the two-year lag between WA’s most recent published data (2022) and SA’s (2024) — the gap since 2022 has almost certainly seen WA’s medical abortion share increase substantially in the wake of the August 2023 MS-2 Step deregulation. The national PBS data tells the most consistent story: medical abortion prescriptions grew from 3,220 in 2014–15 to 20,741 in 2017–18 under the old restricted prescribing rules — an increase of 544% in just three years — and post-deregulation volumes will almost certainly be far higher again.

The policy and clinical implications of the medical-surgical shift are profound and multi-directional. Medical abortion is significantly more accessible: it can be initiated via telehealth consultation, prescribed by a GP, dispensed by any pharmacy, and self-administered at home, removing the need to travel to a specialist clinic entirely for women in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. This is transformative for rural, regional, and remote communities where dedicated surgical abortion facilities are absent or require long-distance travel. It also reduces out-of-pocket cost substantially: with MS-2 Step listed on the PBS, the patient’s contribution is the standard prescription co-payment (currently $31.60 for general patients or $7.70 for concession holders) rather than the several hundred to several thousand dollars that a surgical procedure at a private clinic costs. The limitation is the nine-week gestational window: for women who present after nine weeks, or for whom medical abortion is clinically contraindicated, surgical abortion remains the only option — and the geographic concentration of surgical providers means that access to second-trimester care in particular remains highly inequitable.


Abortion Legal Framework by State and Territory in Australia 2026

Gestational Limits for Abortion on Request by Australian Jurisdiction (2026)
ACT          |████████████████████████████████████████████| No gestational limit on request
NSW          |████████████████████████████████████████████| Up to 22 weeks (request); 22+ two doctors
Victoria     |██████████████████████████████████████████  | Up to 24 weeks (request); 24+ two doctors
Queensland   |████████████████████████████████████████    | Up to 22 weeks; 22+ two doctors
SA           |████████████████████████████████████████    | Up to 22 wks 6 days; after = two doctors
WA           |████████████████████████████████████████    | Up to 20 weeks; 20+ panel approval
Tasmania     |████████████████████████████████████████    | Up to 23 weeks (post March 2024 reform); 23+ one doctor
NT           |████████████████████████████████████        | Up to 22 weeks; complex rules after
             |---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--------|
             0   4   8  12  16  20  22  23  24  26+ weeks
Jurisdiction On-Request Gestational Limit Requirements Above Limit Key Reform
ACT No gestational limit on request Clinical judgement Free abortions from Apr 2023; nurses/midwives can prescribe from Jun 2024
New South Wales Up to 22 weeks Two doctors required above 22 weeks Decriminalised October 2019
Victoria Up to 24 weeks Two doctors above 24 weeks Decriminalised 2008
Queensland Up to 22 weeks Two doctors above 22 weeks Decriminalised 2018
South Australia Up to 22 weeks 6 days Two doctors required; must be performed in approved facility Original SA law 1969; ongoing reform
Western Australia Up to 20 weeks Panel approval required above 20 weeks Decriminalised 1998
Tasmania Up to 23 weeks Single doctor approval above 23 weeks Full reform effective 27 March 2024
Northern Territory Up to 22 weeks Two doctors; special rules for later Decriminalised 2017
Safe access zones (all jurisdictions) 150 metres around clinics Last jurisdiction (WA) — effective September 2021
Conscience objection Permitted in all jurisdictions Referral obligation required in most Varied; ACT referral requirement strengthened 2024

Sources: Wikipedia — Abortion in Australia (updated June 2026); Factually.co — Australia Abortion Policy 2025 (October 2025); South Australian Abortion Reporting Committee Report 2024; ACT Government media releases 2023–2024; TGA — MS-2 Step prescribing amendments (July 2023); ABC News Australia (Tasmania reforms, March 2024)

The legal landscape for abortion in Australia in 2026 is one of uniform decriminalisation but persistent jurisdictional variation in the practical conditions under which abortion is accessible. Every state and territory has now removed abortion from the criminal code — Tasmania being the last to do so with reforms taking full legal effect on 27 March 2024. However, the gestational limits at which abortion is available without requiring additional medical approvals range from no limit in the ACT to 20 weeks in Western Australia — a spread of at least 4 weeks and potentially far more, with significant implications for women who discover fetal abnormalities or experience other complications that arise after the standard gestational threshold. It is also worth noting that in practice, gestational limits rarely prevent abortions where there is a genuine clinical or personal need: the two-doctor and panel-approval requirements for later-term procedures are intended to ensure clinical oversight rather than to function as a flat prohibition, and the evidence from South Australia — where 48 abortions were performed after 22 weeks and 6 days in 2024 — confirms that the oversight mechanisms are functioning as a gateway rather than a barrier for appropriate cases.

The right to conscientious objection exists for healthcare practitioners in all Australian jurisdictions, but all states now require practitioners who decline to provide abortion services to refer patients to a provider who will — a reform that Australia’s leading reproductive health bodies, including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, have long supported as a necessary balance between practitioner freedom and patient access. The 2024 ACT amendment strengthened this obligation for nurses and midwives who are now authorised to prescribe MS-2 Step. The outstanding structural challenge for the Australian abortion access system in 2026 — identified by the 2023 Senate inquiry into universal access to reproductive healthcare, by the MJA, and by clinical researchers across all states — is the geographic gap: women in rural, regional, and remote communities continue to face substantively longer travel times, higher out-of-pocket costs, and longer wait times than metropolitan residents for both medical and surgical abortion services, despite the improvement in medical abortion access through pharmacy dispensing of MS-2 Step.

Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.

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