§ Mr. Watsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his estimate of the number of illegal abortions in each of the 10 years prior to the introduction of the Abortion Act 1967; and what is his estimate of the number of illegal abortions that have taken place since the Act came into force.
§ Mr. MellorThe only information available is the number of recorded offences of procuring an illegal abortion which is published annually in "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales"—offence classification 14 in table 2.8 of the volume for 1982, Cmnd. 9048. The Abortion Act 1967 came into force in April 1968. The number of offences recorded by the police in each of the 10 years 1958 to 1967 is given in the following table. In total, 2,382 such offences were recorded in the 10 years 1958 to 1967 and 967 in the 15 years 1968 to 1982, 716 of which were in the three years 1968 to 1970.
Offences of procuring illegal abortion recorded by the police England and Wales Year Number 1958 140 1959 154 1960 221 1961 245 1962 406 1963 239 1964 271 1965 184 1966 208 1967 314