The abortion rate among women resident in Switzerland – 6.4 terminations per 1,000 women of childbearing age – saw a slight drop in 2009.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Federal Statistics Office said that overall the number of abortions had been decreasing since 2004.

The rate among women aged 15 to 44 has dropped from 6.7 per 1,000 in 2007, the first year in which the place of residence was recorded.

Among 15- to 19-year-olds the rate dropped from 5.3 in 2007 to 5.0 in 2009.

One per cent of abortions carried out were on girls under 16, as in previous years.

The statement added that residents with foreign nationality were “overrepresented”.

The abortion rate varied considerably between cantons, with the lowest rate – 1.6 – recorded in Appenzell Inner Rhodes and the highest in Geneva, at 14.

Only five per cent of those having terminations came from abroad, so there was very little abortion “tourism”, the statistics office concluded.

In Switzerland abortion was legalised in 2002 for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, bringing it into line with most other European countries. Before that the law had been one of the most restrictive on the continent.

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