Abortions Requested by 853 Girls Under 19 in 2024, Statistics Office Says

In 2024, 853 girls under 19 asked Israeli pregnancy termination committees for an abortion, accounting for nearly 6% of all requests, or about one in 17, according to a new Central Bureau of Statistics report based on committee application forms. The share of teenage girls among all applicants has fallen sharply over time, from 14.3% in 2006 to 5.8% in 2024.

Across Israel, 14,608 requests were filed in 2024, a rate of 6.6 per 1,000 women ages 15 to 49, down from 6.9 in 2023. Since the late 1980s, requests have declined steadily. Approval rates remain extremely high, with 99.8% of requests approved and 92.1% of approved cases resulting in an actual abortion.

The most common reason for approval was pregnancy outside marriage, cited in 43.3% of cases. It was followed by risk of fetal physical or mental defect, at 23.3%, and risk to the woman’s health, at 21.6%. The fetal-defect category has been rising steadily, from 15% in 2000 to more than 23% today. Among married women, who made up 51.2% of applicants in 2024, the report says rising participation since 2008 challenges the stereotype that abortions are mainly sought by young unmarried women.

The report found major gaps by population group. Among teenagers, request rates were highest among non-Arab Christian girls and women with no religious classification, at 7.5%, followed by Jewish girls at 6.8%, while Arab girls stood at just 2.2%. Among adult applicants, 45.7% were ages 30 to 39, 41.4% were under 30, and 13% were 40 or older. For women 25 and up, 40.4% held an academic degree and 44.6% had a high school diploma or matriculation certificate. Among Jewish and other women, the highest request rate was among those with less than a high school education, while among Arab women it was among those with a matriculation certificate.

The CBS also said Jewish women born abroad had higher request rates than Israeli-born Jewish women, especially ages 15 to 24, while women who immigrated from Ethiopia had the highest rate overall, 15.3 per 1,000, though that is far below 38.4 in 2000. Israel’s overall rate is midrange by international standards, below England, Sweden, France and the United States, but above Switzerland, Italy and the Czech Republic.