“So far we haven’t been able to start this [statistical] work but we do plan to establish a working group on the subject in the very near future,” deputy prime minister and minister of health, Paulette Lenert, wrote on 23 August in response to a series of parliamentary questions on the matter from the Green Party Dei Greng on 29 June 2022.

On 22 November 2012, Luxembourg Socialist Workers party member of parliament, Alex Bodry, tabled a motion for statistics on abortion to be logged with the government. And on 8 March 2018, a law was introduced that hospitals document their procedures with the government.

However, Lenert explained that codes implemented by Luxembourg’s state health insurer the Caisse Nationale de Sante make it difficult to discern whether an abortion or indeed another medical process had taken place.

“It is important to remember that there are two medical routes to abortion,” Lenert said in her response. “Abortion by the means of Mifepristone medication; or a surgical intervention.”

Lack of precision in codes

Because Mifespristone is a drug also used in other medical cases, it is not possible to distinguish from the CNS code whether an abortion has taken place. Likewise with the surgical intervention known as a dilation and curettage, which is a common surgical procedure also used in cases of miscarriage, explained Lenert.

The burden of covid 19 means that “the health department is not yet able to provide figures on abortions performed in a hospital setting. The timeframe envisaged for the general statistical exploitations of the hospital documentation is envisaged at one year and will require an additional period of validation,” she added.

Family planning – sole source of data

As a result, only the numbers provided by the family planning service in Luxembourg can give an insight into the number of abortions carried out,” said Lenert.

For 2021, this includes:

-       601 women who contacted the family planning service due to an unplanned pregnancy;

-       Out of which 516 abortions were scheduled, 98.3% in Luxembourg and 1.7% abroad;

-       449 abortions were carried out before the seventh or eighth week of pregnancy, with the average being 4.3 weeks.

-       16 of these patients had their first scan at the Centre Hospitalier Luxembourg;

-       63 patients had their first scan at private clinics;

-       51 women were sent to a different hospital due to the unavailability of medical staff for the first scan.

-       The average age of the woman having the abortion was 28.25 years at the beginning of 2020.

 An eight-year-old law

The 2014 law on abortion in Luxembourg allows a woman to request an abortion up to the 12th week of a pregnancy. Prior to 2014, the woman was required to meet with a psychologist.

In May 2022, the head of Luxembourg’s family planning service, Catherine Chéry, told Delano in an that the lack of data and statistics contributed to the taboo around abortion in Luxembourg.

“The stigma around abortion still exists because the subject remains taboo,” Chéry said at the time.

In addition to the statistical questions, Dei Greng members Josee Lorche and Marc Hansen also asked for the minister’s position on extending the abortion cut off timeframe from 12 weeks’ pregnancy to 14 weeks pregnancy.

The minister declined to reveal her personal position but noted that the “possible extension of the period of right to abortion from 12 weeks to 14 weeks in Luxembourg is currently under consideration.”