The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released the national abortion statistics for 2010 this spring.
Having the 2010 statistics published by CIHI allows us to compare those numbers with the Ontario data from 2010 OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) billing records obtained through a Freedom of Information request made last December by Patricia Maloney of the Run with life blog.
The OHIP billing records indicated that there were 43, 997 abortions in Ontario in 2010.
CIHI is reporting only 28,756 abortions in Ontario in 2010.
What a discrepancy between the two numbers.
The actual number of abortions in Ontario is therefore much higher than reported in the statistics as evidenced by the OHIP billing records
CIHI reports data supplied by the province’s ministry of Health, hospitals and independant abortion clinics. CIHI acknowledges in a note regarding coverage of abortion statistics; “CIHI will continue to report on induced abortions performed in hospitals and abortion clinics only. While this is probably an underestimate of induced abortions done in the country, it is currently the best way to produce pan-Canadian comparable data.”
The CIHI data does not capture the number of abortions performed in doctors’ offices, of which , there were 18, 330 in Ontario according to the billing records.
