Abortion complications suppressed to deceive women!

Media Release 20 September 2025

Right to Life believes that the current reporting of abortion statistics in New Zealand is incomplete and unsatisfactory.

We ask: when will the Ministry of Health organise accurate statistics on complications arising from abortion that include not only the complications that occur before the patient is discharged, but also complications that may occur in the days and weeks ahead?

Right to Life believes that if a woman considering an abortion is not provided with complete and reliable statistics on complications from abortion, then she cannot give informed consent, with the consequence that an abortion would be unlawful.

Right to Life believes that the Ministry of Health, which presides over the abortion industry in New Zealand, is anxious to convince women that abortion is safe and that complications resulting from it are very rare.

The Ministry claims that ”abortion is safer than pregnancy and birth”. The Ministry has chosen to ignore the truth that every abortion kills an innocent and defenceless unborn child, who is violently murdered in his or her mother’s womb. The mother, who is the second victim of abortion, is grievously wounded, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and physically.

According to the Ministry of Health, in the year 2023, only 2.2% of abortion procedures in New Zealand were associated with a complication. The overall complication rate for abortions in the country is low, according to the 2024 Abortion Services Aotearoa New Zealand annual report published by the Ministry of Health.

According to data collected in a 2025 Ethics and Public Policy Centre (EPPC) study, which analysed 865,727 U.S. insurance claims from 2017-2023, it found that 10.93% of women patients experienced serious adverse events within 45 days after taking Mifepristone, including sepsis, infection, and haemorrhaging.

This study includes more than 865,000 prescribed Mifepristone abortions from 2017 to 2023.

Indeed, despite the “less than 0.5%” complication rate from clinical trials reported on the drug label, the real-world rate of serious adverse events following Mifepristone abortions is at least 22 times higher.

Right to Life is disappointed that the Ministry of Health refused our request to provide this important information to women seeking an abortion, to ensure that they can give a fully “Informed consent”.

Right to Life believes that the reporting of abortion complications in New Zealand is incomplete and unsatisfactory,

• Incomplete follow-up data: A 2016 article by the Best Practice Advocacy Centre NZ (BPAC) notes that the data on complications is incomplete, as approximately 30% of women return to their referring general practitioner for follow-up, not to the abortion provider. This means the service provider does not have reliable figures on what happens after the procedure.

• Voluntary reporting fields: The official "Notification of Abortion" form, submitted by service providers to the Ministry of Health, has a "Complications (if any)" field. However, this is not a mandatory field for providers to fill out, so complication data may not be consistently reported for all procedures.

• Limited capture of complications: The reporting form only covers complications experienced before the patient is discharged. This fails to capture complications that arise or are managed in the days, weeks, or months following the abortion.

• Statistics on mental health complications are also not captured. A recent study in Canada of 1.2 million pregnancies published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research Volume 187, July 2025, reveal that women who have an abortion experience an increased hospitalisation for mental ill health resulting from their abortion.

Right to Life believe that women considering an abortion have an absolute right to be fully informed of the complications of abortion that could affect their spiritual, psychological, emotional and physical health.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life New Zealand Inc