Taking the records of one group of 1,095 women where the incentives to interference were probably at a minimum, it was found that out of a total of 2,180 pregnancies only 152, or 6·97 per cent., terminated in abortion, while in a series of 5,337 pregnancies in patients taken from the records of St. Helens Hospitals, 6 per cent. terminated in abortion.
Even assuming that all these were spontaneous (which was probably not the case), the incidence is approximately 6 per cent. to 7 per cent.
If, then, the total abortion rate is 20 per 100, it is clear that the incidence of criminal abortion is at least 13 in every 100 pregnancies.
The Committee believes that this figure can be accepted as a conservative estimate of the prevalence of unlawful abortion in New Zealand. Some of the figures presented suggested a still higher incidence.
Applying the figures given to the whole of New Zealand it means that while in the year ending March, 1936, there were 24,395 live births there were probably 6,066 abortions, of which nearly two-thirds (4,000) were criminally induced.
The impression of the Committee is that this is an underestimate.
Serious as this is on general grounds, the matter is of particular importance in regard to the special problem which led to the setting-up of this Committee of inquiry—the incidence of septic abortion.
Septic infection, or blood-poisoning, is the most serious complication which may follow abortion.
Grave concern has been occasioned by a realization of the frequency of septic abortion, the most significant indication of which is the number of women who lose their lives as the result of this complication.
Attention has repeatedly been drawn to this problem by the officers of the Department of Health, the New Zealand Obstetrical and Gynæcological Society, and others interested in maternal welfare.