Termination of pregnancy (abortion)

Termination of pregnancy (TOP), or abortion, involves intentionally ending a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of the embryo or fetus and the placenta from the uterus. It involves either:

  • taking medications before 9 weeks’ gestation (medication termination of pregnancy or medication abortion), or
  • undergoing a procedure (surgical termination of pregnancy or surgical abortion).

A review of the literature and stakeholder consultations identified 4 critical data gaps relating to access to TOP in Australia, along with a series of priority areas for data development to start addressing these gaps (Table 5). These gaps and priority areas for data development have directly informed the development of the Data Strategies for the 5 Priority Topics.

Table 5: Termination of pregnancy (abortion): critical data gaps and priority areas for data development

Data gap

Priority areas for data development

1. Comprehensive national data on TOP (abortion), disaggregated by method, gestation, and patient and provider demographic and geographic characteristics(a)

  1. Routinely link, collate and publish disaggregated TOP prevalence data in a timely way, including improved reporting by method and gestational age.
  2. Describe and monitor geographic accessibility of TOP care.

2. TOP accessibility across priority populations, including access to choice of methods

  1. Collate data on barriers to TOP care.
  2. Monitor ability to access preferred method and aspects of TOP care (provider type, service type, model of care, service location, pain relief).
  3. Identify and monitor out-of-pocket costs associated with accessing TOP care in Australia.
  4. Record self-managed and unsafe abortion attempts.

​​3. Routine measurement and monitoring of patient experiences, quality of care and complication rates

  1. Monitor patient experiences, both within and before contact with the health care system.
  2. Monitor quality of TOP care (including stigma, obstruction and conscientious objection, and complication rates) with the lowest feasible geographic disaggregation across provider types.

4. Understanding of provider capability, capacity and wellbeing or support

Identify and monitor health care providers delivering appropriate TOP care, including:

  1. Whether health care providers have undertaken formal training.
  2. Health care provider confidence and capacity in offering TOP care.
  3. Service and systems-level factors influencing provider capability, capacity and wellbeing.

(a) Stakeholder consultations identified clearer separation of procedures for TOP – as distinct from pregnancy loss in administrative data collections – as a data development priority in future or new data collections.

Additional data development priorities

The need to develop national data standards for termination of pregnancy was identified as an additional priority area for development. Developing data standards would support more consistent identification of abortion in relevant data collections, enabling improved monitoring and reporting. 

Previous page
Next page