The British government has released statistics
showing that while the teen pregnancy and abortion rates are dropping, the
number of girls and women having repeat abortions continues to climb alongside
steady increases in the use of artificial contraceptives.
According to the Society for the Protection of Unborn
Citizens, the statistics show that giving more contraceptives to young girls
will lead to more abortions.
According to 2012 figures for London alone, 16,323 women age 18-29 had abortions
who had never had one previously. 7,817 of aborting women in London in the same
age group had had one previous abortion. 149 had had four previous abortions
and 22 had had six previously. Overall, the number of repeat abortions for
England and Wales is about 37 percent in the latest figures.
The government’s figures show that in general the
abortion rate has dropped since 2010 but the number of repeat abortions has
risen. In 2011, 36 percent of women undergoing abortions had one or more
previous abortions. The 2011 report said that number has risen from 31 percent
since 2001.
The same 2011 report found that 96 percent of abortions were funded by the
NHS and 61 percent of these were carried out in private facilities who bill the
NHS.
Health Minister Jane Ellison added that in 2012, of
the 185,122 abortions performed on residents of England and Wales, none were
allowed under Ground F, “to save the life of the pregnant woman.”
The release of the statistics comes as a government health
rationing board has
recommended that abortifacient drugs be given to schoolgirls for free to reduce
the teen pregnancy rate. Calls for increasing “access” to contraceptives are
constant from powerful “family planning” lobby agencies like International
Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International whose main business is
providing abortions, usually subsidized by the National Health Service.
Paul Tully, SPUC’s general secretary, told
LifeSiteNews that the rate of repeat abortions has risen steadily since the
legalization of abortion, while the government continues to press for more and
more artificial contraception.
In a SPUC media release, Tully said, “The pro-abortion
lobby will suggest that more stringent birth control regimes are needed to stop
women becoming pregnant and incurring expensive NHS abortion costs.”
“As a result of these figures, ministers are likely to
agree to more intensive programmes to promote contraception, both to women who
have abortions, and to young people generally,” Tully said.
But “the result of this is well-recognised – it
doesn't reduce abortion, but promotes attitudes and sexual behaviour which
increase the likelihood of children being conceived in unstable situations.”
Government statistics have shown that nearly three quarters of underage
pregnancies end in abortion.
“To break this vicious cycle,” Tully added, “doctors
should refuse to sanction abortion for so-called ‘unwanted’ pregnancies.” Tully
noted that even according to the current law abortion is not legal simply
because a child is “unwanted.”
He called on ministers to demand that the Department
of Health “stop promoting birth-control policies which lead to sexual abuses,
the undermining of marriage and the killing of unborn babies.”
Tully told LifeSiteNews there needs to be a more
comprehensive, and less ideologically-driven examination of how the abortion
rates “are affected by the contraceptive and anti-life mentality” being pressed
by certain lobbying interests in Parliament. He said that currently, because of
the large percentage of abortions carried out in private facilities like those
run by Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS),
obtaining accurate figures is extremely difficult.
The government’s 2011 report also noted that the
proportion of ground C abortions, those conducted because “the pregnancy would
involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the
physical or mental health of the pregnant woman” has “risen steadily.” The
“vast majority” (99.96 per cent) of ground C-only terminations “were reported
as being performed because of a risk to the woman’s mental health.”
Tully said that given the way the system works it is
very likely that the number of repeat abortions is underreported. He noted that
in freestanding abortion facilities, the medical information is obtained
directly from the woman and not confirmed by consultation with her regular
doctor.
Tully added that “the precision of the numbers given
implies that the numbers are highly reliable, but scratch the surface a little
and I would say the accuracy of the figures is in question.” In general he said
they are “more likely to be higher in reality than lower.”
He noted too that the government’s abortion statistics
are no longer collated from the data by an outside, independent statistical
agency, but are compiled by the Sexual Health Team of the Department of Health,
“the very people who are developing and pressing forward these policies.”
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