UK Abortion rate at highest ever
Pastor Dale Morgan
UK Abortion rate at highest ever*
By Natalie Paris and agencies
Last Updated: 5:37pm GMT 07/02/2007
Christmas partying has been blamed for monthly abortion figures reaching
their highest ever levels in January.
Britain's leading abortion provider Marie Stopes International (MSI)
said a total of 5,992 abortions were carried out last month at the
charity's nine UK clinics.
This showed a rise of 13% on the 5,304 figure for January 2005, the
highest figure recorded in MSI's 32-year history.
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The charity believes this could have been caused by Christmas drinking,
leading to unprotected sex.
In total, 61,983 abortions were performed at Marie Stopes clinics in the
UK in 2006.
Liz Davies, MSI director of UK operations, said: "It's too soon to say
whether the figures we have recorded will be reflected across the
country in official national statistics to be published later this year.
"It does seem, however, that we may be seeing the consequences of the
festive season, when partying excess and alcohol consumption combine to
increase libido and lower inhibition, with the inevitable consequences
of unprotected sex resulting in unplanned pregnancies."
The charity offered women an emergency contraception "party purse", in
the run up to Christmas, in an attempt to encourage women to keep
emergency contraception stored at home.
It contained the emergency contraceptive Levonelle, two condoms and a
Christmas sexual health guide.
But the move was not without criticism from some family planning groups
who called it "irresponsible".
MSI has called for an annual Government-funded national education
campaign to alert women and men to the importance of preventing unwanted
pregnancies and STIs (sexually-transmitted infections) including HIV-Aids.
Ms Davies said: "Despite our efforts we have still seen the biggest rise
ever in abortion figures in the month after Christmas.
"It's obvious that one agency working in this field with limited
resources can never have a significant impact on abortion figures.
Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service
(BPAS), said: "At BPAS we've also seen a higher than usual number of
women for abortion treatment this January, which is traditionally a time
of high demand.
She offered a different explanation for the results however and
suggested that lack of access to proper services, rather than women
being 'careless after boozy office parties' was at fault.
"Closure of family planning facilities, GPs and pharmacists during the
holiday period means contraceptive access is reduced," she said.
"Women who needed an abortion referral in December may also have had to
wait until the holidays are over in January to get treatment.
"This year, to make things much worse, drastic NHS spending cutbacks are
resulting in well-documented delays to abortion in some areas.
She added: "It may be due to that treatment bottleneck that the
treatments have been clustered together in January."
Making emergency contraception available over the counter as well as
through GPs, some A&E departments and sexual health clinics has caused
controversy.
Last September, a leading professor argued that making it easier for
women to get emergency contraception had had no effect on cutting
abortion rates.
Professor Anna Glasier, director of the Lothian Primary Care NHS Trust
in Edinburgh, said in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that education
was the key to cutting the figures.