48 abortions registered to Kerry addresses

FORTY-EIGHT women gave Kerry addresses when having abortions in 2019 according to statistics from the Department of Health, which were released last week.

The first annual report on the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018) shows that, in total, 6,666 terminations were carried out in the country in 2019.

The majority of these were carried out in early stage pregnancy.

This is the first time that such figures have been made available following the result of the May 2018 referendum on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.

That vote paved they way for abortions to take place in Ireland. Terminations have been legally available in Ireland since January 1, 2019.

Kerry voted in favour of changing the eighth amendment, with 58.27 per cent in favour.

Of the 26 counties listed in the report last week, Kerry ranks the fifth lowest on the list, with 48 women giving addresses from Kerry when having a termination.

Leitrim, Longford, Roscommon and Monaghan all registered fewer terminations than Kerry based on the addresses provided.

Wicklow and Wexford, which have similar populations to Kerry’s, registered more than treble the Kerry figures, with 138 and 165 terminations respectively.

Dublin accounted for 2,493 terminations going by the woman’s home address, and Cork was registered for 606, the figures show.

Terminations were carried out in all 26 counties of the Republic, with Leitrim recording the lowest figures at 27.

Fifteen cases gave no address, and these are listed as ‘other’ in the report, while 525 gave no county.

Until this report, no such figures were available, although UK reports did give an indication of how many women from Kerry and Ireland went to the UK for abortions, based on the addresses of women seeking abortion. In 2018, these figures show that 52 women gave Kerry addresses when undertaking an abortion in the UK.