Fact Check: "Abortions continued to decline after the Heartbeat Regulation came into force"

In September 2022, the Hungarian government tightened abortion regulations overnight without any kind of public debate or expert consultation. Virtually the only substantive change to the decision, known as the "Heartbeat Regulation", was the requirement to expose women seeking an abortion to the heartbeat of the fetus before terminating their pregnancy.

"In the case of an unwanted pregnancy, the expectant woman must observe the fetus along with its vital functions and cardiac function typical of the gestational age (e.g. an ultrasound image of the fetus and the pulsation of the heart should be clearly identified and shown, if technically possible, and the heartbeat should be listened to, unless there are medical contraindications)."

The aim of the regulation was to reduce the number of pregnancy terminations. By contrast, it became clear in June that the number of abortions has not only not decreased since the regulation was introduced, but has occasionally even increased compared to a year earlier.

The Democratic Coalition (DK) even issued a statement saying that "the cost-of-living crisis and Orbán's inflation have led to an increase in the number of abortions in Hungary."

State Secretary for Health Péter Takács reacted to the announcement on Facebook in early June. He wrote that DK was making false claims, as the number of abortions has been steadily decreasing since 2010:

This post was later picked up by Magyar Nemzet, with the exceptionally temperate title "Gyurcsány's party lies about abortions". They added that the inflation was due to the war and "misguided sanctions" (Without going into this in depth, Hungary is the EU record holder in this respect, and even Romania and Poland, which also border Ukraine, have inflation rates that are almost half of ours). Of course, there was also a lot of spin against Gyurcsány in the article, but the point is that they copied everything from Takács' post almost verbatim, without criticism.

The decision on whether or not to have a child is always complex, and it is unlikely that a regulation alone would have a significant impact on such a serious issue. Even if a regulation were to ban abortion, experience shows that a number of women would still opt for other forms of abortion, only they are much more dangerous.

But the most interesting part of Takács' reaction is the data, as it is not clear where he got it from. It is unlikely that it came from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO), which should be the primary source of official data of this kind. We've asked the Ministry of the Interior where the State Secretary's data came from and will update this article in the event of a response.

We contacted biostatistician Tamás Ferenci to help interpret the numbers. He started by saying that these numbers alone, whatever they may indicate, cannot be used to make a definitive judgment on this issue, either pro or con. "The problem is that the period before and after the regulation does not differ solely in the fact of the regulation: as time goes on, a thousand other factors change as well. From that point on, even if we find a difference in the numbers before and after the regulation, we won't know whether the difference is because of the regulation or because of one of a thousand other things that changed at the same time, or some combination of them.

Theoretically, it may even be that the number of abortions has increased, but the regulation has done some good: had it not been for the regulation, it would have increased even more! Or, conversely, the number has decreased, but the regulation has actually done harm because without it the number would have decreased even more.

This is precisely the difficulty with such data: that even we cannot be sure of it. We always have to bear this in mind and therefore always be cautious in interpreting such figures. That said, it is of course important that the figures are accurate, if only because they form the basis for more subtle analyses," Ferenci pointed out.

However, the figures in the post either have no connection with reality (i.e. with the official data of the HCSO), or Takács framed them in a very strange way.

"The steady decline in abortions since 2010 also persisted with 12,876 abortions in 2021 and nearly 500 fewer in 2022!!"

– writes Takács.

The first part of the sentence is true: the number of abortions has indeed been falling since 2010. But Ferenci says the statement is completely misleading. "The wording implies that the decline has only been going on since 2010, when in fact the number of abortions relative to the population has been falling since 1995, and even since 1969 if we exclude small, temporary increases."

Without knowing the data, it might seem from the State Secretary's words that Fidesz's family policy is behind the phenomenon. However – as the statistics show – this is not the case. According to HCSO data, there was a small temporary increase in the mid-1990s and a slightly larger temporary increase in the late 1980s, but overall the decline in the number of abortions has actually been going on for many decades, not just since 2010. Yes, even under the Gyurcsány government, it was falling:

The other half of the sentence however is simply not true. According to the HCSO, in 2021 there weren't 12,876 abortions, but almost double that, 21,907, and in 2022 there will be 21,800, which is indeed a decrease, but not by 500, but 107. However, the regulation was passed in September, so when looking at its impact, it doesn't make much sense statistically to look at data for the whole year. If we compare the three months after the regulation with the same months in the previous year, we see that there were 5,067 abortions in 2021 and 5,059 in 2022, a difference on the order of a thousandth, so there is no real substantive change.

"This number was 7,564 in the 7 months prior to the regulation and 7,336 in the 7 months after."

– Takács wrote. This statement is entirely inaccurate. One of the problems is that there is no data for the seven months after the regulation, only six, because the last HCSO data release was in March 2023. Moreover, according to HCSO data, there were many more abortions in the six months alone before the regulation (11,486) than in seven months according to Peter Takács (the exact figure for the seven months is 13,347), and 10,660 in the six months after the regulation.

So on the face of it, the decline is there when comparing the two six-month periods, but Ferenci says it is problematic that Takács compared these months: "There is seasonality in the number of abortions within a year, so the distribution over the course of a year is not even, in terms of how many are performed each month. For a fair comparison, this seasonality should be corrected for, or if not, at least the comparison should be made between the same periods in different years, not completely different periods."

Indeed, if we compare the six months following the introduction of the regulation with the same period of the previous year, we see that there were 10,702 in 2021-2022 and 10,660 in 2022-2023. So there is no real difference here either.

"It might not make much of a difference for such short periods, but in general it is quite questionable to use the absolute number of abortions. The problem is that the size of the population from which a given number of abortions are performed is changing: the population of the country is decreasing, and with it the number of women, and thus the number of women of childbearing age. For this reason, a lower number at a later date may not necessarily indicate a better situation, which is why it is usual to use a figure based on the number of women of childbearing age." – added Ferenci.

If we look at the HCSO data, we can see that although the number of abortions decreased from 21,907 in 2021 to 21,800 in 2022, the rate per thousand women of childbearing age did not change at all (it remained at 10.0). Moreover, they also usually calculate the number per hundred live births, which provides an indicator of the proportion of conceptions that ended in abortion: this has even increased for 2022 (24.7 compared to 23.5 in 2021). The severity of the situation is illustrated by the fact that the last time there was such an increase in Hungary was in 1996.

At the beginning of June, a survey by Válasz Online revealed that the number of abortions has not decreased despite the regulation. The article, like Ferenci, pointed out that it's not enough to look at the number of pregnancies that are terminated, but what is important is the rate per hundred children born. The number of births falls with the number of abortions.

"The number of abortions per hundred live births has worsened more dramatically, with a rise of 18 percent in September, 15 percent in October and 9 percent in November."

– they write. This is worse when compared to the same months of the previous year.