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England’s abortion rate rises

June 19, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Abortion rates are rising in the UK for teens. Pro-life or pro-choice, I’m not sure anyone sees this kind of thing as a grand success. Unless you are Dawn Primaloo, Health Minister, whose priority is decreasing wait times:

Our priority is to reduce the time women have to wait for an abortion at what is already a very difficult time for them. These statistics show that we have made considerable progress in this, with over two-thirds of women having their abortion at under ten weeks in 2007, up from half in 2002.

Bravo, Dawn, bravo.

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Rebecca adds: If only she were as eager to decrease waits for surgeries or to see specialists. You know, actually providing health care.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abortion rates, teen abortions, United Kingdom

What fits in Mother Russia?

May 13, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Russia has the highest abortion rate in the world. Now the Duma is attempting to ban abortion advertising in an effort to reduce the number. I see this as a reminder that abortion being legal doesn’t correlate with happy, healthy populations. Women in Russia do not have more freedom and rights, men and women in Russia are not healthier (in fact, globally, Russia is the only country to not experience an improvement in life expectancy between 1950 and today–improvements in life expectancy are generally an indicator of better health and welfare.) I’m not saying abortion is the only factor to consider–that would be silly. But it is one factor and since we are strangely told that abortion equals enhanced rights and improved health in particular for women, we ought to examine Russia closely.

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Brigitte wonders: Does anybody really believe that a ban on abortion advertising will help? I have trouble imagining any pregnant woman suddenly deciding to abort her child because she saw an ad on television on in a magazine. I’ve lived in Quebec for 30 years (last time I looked: 42 abortions per 100 live births), yet I can’t really recall any abortion advertising jingle or slogan or any kind of abortion ad whatever. But I can still imitate Sucrets’ famous “Solange, es-tu réveillée?” from an ad that probably hasn’t aired since 1978. I’m afraid there as here, the problem is a culture that doesn’t put much value on the unborn, not abortion advertising.

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Rebecca adds: 42 abortions per 100 live births? Wow. I’ve never heard it framed that way before, but that’s a very attention-getting way to put it.

 

Re: abortion and advertising: I agree, I find it unlikely that a given woman with an unplanned pregnancy will be spurred to abort, when she otherwise wouldn’t, by an ad. I do believe, though, that a culture in which abortion is portrayed as so mainstream and acceptable as to be advertised like a new soft drink (hey, we don’t allow cigarettes to be advertised anymore because of their harmful effects) would encourage people to perceive abortion, even unconsciously, as a perfectly valid option that means less caution is needed with birth control and choosing sexual partners.

 

The link between unmarried births and welfare rates (they’re positively corelated with respect to increases in most U.S. states) is a similar sort of background, culture-setting issue. Your typical 17-year-old doesn’t sit down with a scratch pad and calculate whether it’s financially viable to have a baby with no job and no husband on the horizon based on current benefit rates, but is nonetheless influenced by the degree to which society assents to supporting the children of teen mothers.

 

In the case of Russia, even if the only motivation is demographic concern, a ban on abortion advertising would have the effect of delegitimizing it to some small extent. Free speech is always an issue in advertising restrictions, but Russia’s history of problems with freedom of expression is such that pro-abortion ads are the least of its troubles on that score.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abortion rates, health, Russia, Women's rights

Sex is a sacrament and not a commodity?

March 23, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Woah. Must be some deeply religious news source—perhaps a newspaper from the Vatican—making this recommendation:

Re-instituting the traditional Christian message on sex – it is a sacrament and not a commodity – would be a good place to start.

Not quite. The same paper reports high teen abortion rates: One in 23 teens in some areas have had an abortion. I must be jaded, because that doesn’t sound that high to me. It’s worth looking into the stats and figuring out very precisely how many women have had abortions. In Canada, 70 per cent of abortions happen before age 29. But how many are repeat abortions, which would change the number of women who have had one, and the rate. This is very important. Why? For accuracy alone, which is a good reason all by itself. The other reason why it’s important is that pro-abortion activists would like to “mainstream” abortion. It’s just so normal, why look! One in three women will have one before the age of 45. I highly doubt this statistic as cited by Planned Parenthood in the U.S. And as with so many of these finer points, it is critical to know the exact and correct number.As for sex education and abortion: I’m not convinced calling sex a sacrament will help (far too many don’t know what a sacrament is). But that it is not a commodity, not to be taken lightly, and to be avoided entirely as a teen: Why, oh why, is this so controversial in the public square? 

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Just stumbled across this: This item suggests some women have repeat abortions. Up to five, in spite of sex education. Interesting.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abortion rates, sex education, UK, United Kingdom

“My body, my choice” in Australia

March 19, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Apparently abortion rates in Australia have precipitously declined.

We’ve plotted a sudden decline in the abortion rate that is so low it harps right back to the time when abortion was illegal and rarely practised,” said Dr Julia Shelley, of Deakin University in Melbourne.

Aha–and this is what I’m after. Women who simply don’t and won’t choose abortion, irrespective of what legislation says. We should know better for ourselves without legislation telling us.

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Rebecca adds: Fascinating.  Any speculation as to the cause?

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abortion rates, Australia

Gosh, that’s still a lot…

January 18, 2008 by Brigitte Pellerin Leave a Comment

U.S. Abortion Rate Falls to Lowest Level in Decades:

The abortion rate for 2005 was 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. In comparison, the rate was 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 1981, 21.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 2000, and 19.7 abortions per 1,000 women in 2004.

The report says there were “1.2 million abortions in 2005, compared to a high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990.”

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abortion rates, United States

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