There were 31,000 abortions carried out in the Netherlands in 2011, down around 1,000 on 2010 according to health inspectorate figures.

Half of all abortions took place in the first seven weeks of pregnancy, and in one in five cases, the pregnancy ran for at least 12 weeks, news agency ANP said.

The Netherlands has one of the lowest abortion rates in the world, at just 8.7 per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44.