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Question for Department of Health

UIN HL3075, tabled on 8 November 2016

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many human embryos were deliberately destroyed in the last 12 months for which figures are available; how many human embryos were transferred to uteri in order to establish pregnancies; and what are the cumulative figures for both circumstances since such procedures were made legal.

Answered on

22 November 2016

The information requested is show in the following tables. Table 1 provides the figures for the most recently available year (1 July 2014 – 30 June 2015). Table 2 provides the cumulative figures from 1 August 1991, after such procedures were brought within a specialist regulatory framework of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, to 30 June 2015.

Table 1:

Embryos transferred

84,044

Embryos discarded

172,184

Table 2:

Embryos transferred

1,687,260

Embryos discarded

2,315,262

Source: The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.