Less than 150 of the six million plus abortions carried out since abortion became legal were performed to save the life of the mother, government figures show.
According to the figures 6.4 million abortions were performed on residents of England and Wales between 1968 and 2011.
Of these just 143 (0.006 per cent) were performed to save the life of the mother or to prevent serious permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the mother.
Abortion
A further 23,778 (0.37%) abortions were performed because the continuance of pregnancy would involve the risk to the life of the woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated.
The figures were revealed in response to a Parliamentary Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool.
An entry on the pro-life Peer’s blog said: “When the case for allowing legal abortion was first placed before Parliament it was argued that the law needed to be changed to deal with extremely serious situations.
Life
“More than 6 million abortions later the figures reveal that in 99.5% of cases where an unborn child’s life is ended there is no risk to the health of the mother.
“Other figures reveal that 3 teenage girls have had 24 abortions between them and that some women have had more than 8 legal abortions.”
Last year 189,931 abortions were performed on residents of England and Wales.
Pre-signed
Last month it emerged that fourteen NHS hospitals had been found breaking the law by using pre-signed abortion consent forms.
Under the current law, two doctors must sign a referral form before a woman can go ahead with an abortion.
But an investigation by the Care Quality Commission discovered hospitals using pre-signed forms, or forms on which the approval signatures had been photocopied, thereby allowing the second doctor to make the decision on their own.