Abortion Toll Rises Yet Again in England and Wales, ProLife Alliance

(I-Newswire) July 30, 2005 - Julie Millington, on behalf of the ProLife Alliance, comments:

'Despite increased access to contraception, relentless sex education programmes, and easy availability of the abortifacient morning-after-pill, the abortion figures in England and Wales are climbing towards 200,000 a year and likely to continue to rise.

'A colossal overall increase in numbers in the decades since abortion was decriminalised can be noted in one of the graphs in the statistics (Figure 1), where it shows that around 5 women per 1000 had abortions in the early years, compared to 17 per 1000 today.

'We note too that the private abortion providers (Marie Stopes, BPAS, et al) have increased considerably their share of this grisly market, particularly as agents for the NHS, a share which they have tripled in the last ten years (see Figure 2). Their overall percentage when combined with private provision is now some 60% of the market. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that we saw them recently banding together against any restrictive reform of the Abortion Act. Their livelihood depends on abortion.

'It is always unpleasant to scan chilling data on the suppression of pregnancy, and heartbreaking to see the totals as they climb year after year, knowing that each number represents a tiny human life that has been ended.

'On this occasion, however, we are also concerned about the extremely worrying suppression of data in the current statistics, which so obviously comes in the wake of and as a response to the cleft-palate legal challenge. Information which was previously available has been withdrawn.

'Why in an age when the Government continually preaches increased transparency and public accountability, is less detail about abortion now available than it was five years ago? Illegal abortion remains a criminal act and no attempts of any kind should be made to bury information relevant to assessment of correct practice in this area.'

Julia Millington
Political Director
ProLife Alliance
Tel: 020 7581 6939
Fax: 020 7581 3868
info@prolife.org.uk
http://www.prolife.org.uk

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