abortion.
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Annual Abortion Rates

In 2005, the latest year on record, 96,815 abortions were performed on Canadian women. More than three million unborn babies have died from abortion in Canada since 1969, when abortion was first decriminalized. Statistics Canada tables show a recorded total of 2,822,293 abortions between 1969 and 2005. Assuming an annual average of 100,000 abortions for 2006 and 2007 (and recognizing that reported numbers since 2000 reflect about 90 percent of abortions) the total number of abortions is more than three million.

More than one million abortions (1,010,586) were performed between 1970 and 1987. In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down all remaining restrictions on abortion. Statistics Canada recorded 70,868 abortions in 1988. That number jumped 29% over the next two years to 91,476 in 1990. By 1992 it had risen to 101,726, a 44% increase in four years. Abortions continued to increase annually to a recorded high of 111, 526 in 1997—in the nine years following the Supreme Court decision, the number of abortions in Canada increased by a total of 57%.

Between 1988 and 2005, almost two million babies lost their lives to abortion. The recorded total from Statistics Canada is 1,811,707, a partial record which excludes roughly 10% of the actual number of abortions performed between 2000 and 2005, due to incomplete reporting. After 1997 the number of reported abortions gradually dropped back down to 96,815 in 2005. Because the 1988 court decision also struck down reporting requirements, it is difficult to know how accurate the figures are.

Statistics Canada tables

Canada abortion rates, 1974 to 2005

Canada abortion rates, 1988 to 2005