In 2018, a total of 12,380 abortions were carried out in Norway, which is 350 fewer than the year before. The biggest decline is in the youngest age groups.
The abortion figures have been historically low in recent years, and they fell further in 2018, according to new figures from the Abortion register at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
The fall is due to a marked decrease in the number of pregnancies among women under the age of 25. Figures from both the Abortion Register and the Medical Birth Registry show a marked decline in pregnancies among women under the age of 25, both the wanted and the unwanted pregnancies.
“The younger women since 2008 have become better at avoiding unplanned pregnancies. When these numbers go down, both abortion and birth rates go down,” says general practitioner Mette Løkeland at the Public Health Institute.
The figures fall steadily: in 2017, 12,733 abortions were carried out in Norway. In comparison, 13,169 abortions were carried out in 2016, while the figure was 14,001 in 2015.
In 2018, the national abortion rate was 10.3 per 1,000 women in the 15–49 age group. The year before, the rate was 10.6, and that was a decrease from 11 per 1,000 women in 2016.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
