An interesting exchange took place in the House of Commons on July 2nd when a Labour MP asked the Secretary of State for Health how much medical services assigned to the termination of pregnancies under the Abortion Act 1967 cost the NHS in each of the last five years; and what estimate has been made of the cost of such services in 2009-10.
In response Gillian Merron produced a table showing the total cost of abortions undertaken by the British national health service organisations between 2003-04 and 2007-08, being the latest five years for which information is available.
The figures showed a significant year on year increase from £69.4 million in 2003-04 to a whopping £84.1 Million in 2007-08 representing a 20% increase on the 2003-04 level.
It appears however that this not the total cost of all publicly funded abortions because the figures do not include abortions performed by private sector organisations under contract to the NHS.
No estimate has apparently been made for the cost of NHS abortions in 2009-10.
