Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many abortions there were in each of the last 15 years in which the fetus had a cleft (a) palate or (b) lip, broken down by (i) grounds for the abortion, (ii) length of gestation at the time of abortion and (iii) health authority.
Data on cleft palate and cleft lip are not identifiable separately within the abortion statistics. Information on the combined number of legal abortions under Ground E for primary medical reason of cleft lip and palate, by gestation, for residents of England and Wales is set out in the following table:
Cleft lip and Cleft palate | ||
Year | All gestations | Gestation 24 weeks and above |
2002 | 2 | 0 |
2003 | 6 | 0 |
2004 | 3 | 0 |
2005 | 5 | 1 |
2006 | 2 | 0 |
2007 | 0 | 0 |
2008 | 2 | 0 |
2009 | 3 | 0 |
2010 | 7 | 0 |
2011 | 4 | 0 |
2012 | 4 | 0 |
2013 | 9 | 0 |
2014 | 10 | 0 |
2015 | 11 | 0 |
2016 | 9 | 0 |
The Department holds abortion data by clinical commissioning group (CCG) and local authority (LA), rather than by health authority. Data for cleft lip and palate has not been released broken down by either CCG or LA due to the disclosive nature of the data as there are small numbers in each area.