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More women have abortions as it loses stigma


Telegraph ^ | November 28, 2006 | Celia Hall


Posted on 11/29/2006 11:46:29 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks


Women are finding it more acceptable to have an abortion than to drift
into an unplanned pregnancy, the head of Britain's leading abortion
agency said yesterday.

Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory
Service (BPAS), said one women in five was now childless at the age of
45 and an increasing number were making the choice not to have children
at all.

Ms Furedi said there had been a shift in public opinion about
parenthood. The stigma of abortion had diminished but there was now
concern about being a poor parent. "Parenting is considered to be very
important and is taken seriously these days," she said. "The idea of
just drifting into unplanned motherhood is seen not to be a good thing
and you could argue that among many groups of people in society
abortion is seen as a more responsible response to being a victim of
uncontrolled fertility," she said. "The bottom line is that it's now
normal for women in their 40s simply to decide not to have children,"
said Ms Furedi at the launch of an Ipsos Mori poll into attitudes to
abortion.

Abortion figures continue to rise year on year. Latest figures show
that there are about 165,500 abortions for British residents a year.

The BPAS says that the opportunity to get pregnant is greater as more
women are sexually active for longer, with no intention of starting a
family. Contraception could fail and couples would sometimes fail to
use contraception.

She said that because more women in the peak of their fertility, in
their early 20s, were having sex frequently in the context of a
relationship, the chance of uninvited pregnancy was high. "They simply
don't want to have a child at that time of their lives." Almost a third
of women using contraception choose the Pill. Of these, eight per cent
can expect to get pregnant each year. Rates of condom failure are even
higher with 15 women out of every 100 becoming pregnant.

The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,000 adults found that slightly fewer adults
agreed that "abortion should be made legally available for all who want
it" than five years ago. In the survey in May, 59 per cent agreed with
the question compared with 62 per cent in 2001.

Asked if a woman should not have to continue with a pregnancy if she
wanted an abortion, 63 per cent agreed and 18 per cent disagreed.

The survey was commissioned by BPAS, which says the law should be
changed to make abortion easier.

Life, the anti-abortion lobby group, said women should not make choices
at the expense of unborn children. A spokesman said: "Society must
respect the right to life of all human beings, even those who are small
and vulnerable and possibly inconvenient."

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More women have abortions as it loses stigma

"Parenting is considered to be very important and is taken seriously these
days," she said. "The idea of just drifting into unplanned motherhood is
seen not to be a good thing and you could argue that among many groups of
people in society abortion is seen as a more responsible response to being
a victim of uncontrolled fertility," she said.