AN EPIDEMIC of teenage abortions is sweeping the country
Pastor Dale Morgan
AN EPIDEMIC of teenage abortions is sweeping the country, a News of the
World investigation reveals.*
UK - Despite a government scheme to cut pregnancies by dishing out
morning-after pills to youngsters, a record 18,619 girls under 18 had
terminations last year.
That means the hidden toll of misery has SOARED by more than 2,500 in
ten years.
Our figures obtained from the Department of Health show the number of
under-18s given a SECOND abortion rose to 1,341. Shamefully, one
18-year-old even underwent her SIXTH.
Our probe reveals for the first time how the number of teenagers seeking
terminations has rocketed across England and Wales.
It pinpoints London as the nation's abortion capital. And it shows how,
in one borough, an astonishing ONE IN 22 girls under 18 had the op to
get rid of babies last year.
This grim tally was recorded in Lambeth, south London, where the
abortion rate was FIVE TIMES higher than other parts of the country. But
nearby Southwark ran it a close second with one in 25 young girls having
abortions.
London's overall rate was 24 girls per 1,000 — which equates to a
horrifying one in every 41 teenagers. In fact, almost all the top ten
under-18 abortion blackspots were in the London area, including Barking
& Dagenham, Lewisham, Hackney and Croydon.
The only exception was the Midlands city of Coventry, which joined the
list of shame with one in 33 girls having an abortion. Rural
Herefordshire clocked up just one in 100.
Shockingly, our inquiry also revealed 135 girls younger than FOURTEEN
terminated pregnancies across the country.
The number of pregnant girls turning to doctors for help is rising even
though many schools have enlisted nurses to hand out morning-after birth
pills. In the past four years Lutterworth grammar school in
Leicestershire gave its pupils more than 300 of the tablets.
But the epidemic is not confined to the young. In all 193,737 women had
abortions last year—more than the soccer stadiums of Manchester United,
Arsenal and Newcastle put together would hold. And for 44 of these it
was at least their EIGHTH op.
Economics Professor David Paton, of Nottingham Business School, said
rising abortion rates indicated "the government's strategy of increasing
access to services such as emergency contraception is failing."