ouble to collect information and
prepare their evidence.

PART I.--INCIDENCE OF ABORTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

All the evidence brought before the Committee indicates that abortion
is exceedingly frequent in New Zealand.

It is quite impossible to assess the incidence with complete accuracy,
for the reason that a very considerable number of these cases do not
come under medical or hospital observation, but some definite
indication of the frequency is given by the statistics obtained from
various hospitals and practices.

In one urban district, for instance, in which the total live births for
a two-year period were 4,000, the number of cases of abortion treated
in the public hospital alone was 400.

When to this number were added the cases treated in the various private
hospitals, those attended by doctors in the patients' homes, and those
not medically attended at all, it was computed that a total of 1,000
abortions was a conservative figure. In other words, roughly twenty
pregnancies in every 100 terminated in abortion.

Looked at from a somewhat different angle, figures were presented from
one hospital showing that in a group of 568 unselected women of
child-bearing age, there were 549 abortions in 2,301 pregnancies, or 23
per hundred.

HOW DO THESE CASES ORIGINATE?

It must be explained that a certain number of cases of abortion occur
perfectly innocently as the result of some condition of ill health, or,
occasionally, as the result of accident. These _spontaneous_ cases
constitute an entirely medical problem.

All other cases are artificially produced or _induced_.

A very small number of these are honourably performed by medical
practitioners when the mother's life is seriously endangered.

This procedure is termed "_Therapeutic induction of abortion_."

Certain important questions in relation to therapeutic abortion will be
discussed at a later stage in this report.

The remainder of the induced cases are unlawfully produced by the
person herself or by some other person--_criminal abortion_.

The Committee received much evidence regarding the methods used in the
attempt to procure abortion.

In the first instance it was shown that the use of so-called
abortifacient drugs was extensively practised and was usually a first
resort.

Little need be said about the matter at this stage except to state that
the New Zealand evidence entirely supports the opinions expressed
elsewhere that drug-taki