British Abortion Businesses Blame Immigration for Record Abortions 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 22, 2007
London, England (LifeNews.com) — Leading British abortion businesses are blaming immigration for causing the record abortion numbers the nation’s health department reported recently. Abortions in the UK are on the rise again and this time the government figures show the number there is up four percent.
The Department of Health reports there were 193,700 abortions in 2006, a 3.9 percent increase over the 186,400 in 2005.
That’s the highest number of abortions in 40 years of legalized abortion after the Abortion Act allowed abortions in 1967.
Marie Stopes International and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) abortion centers say the rise in abortions is due to women migrating to England from eastern European nations. In those countries abortion is regarded as a means of contraception.
"We’ve had an influx of 70,000 immigrants from eastern Europe in recent years and they came from a culture where abortion is seen as a primary method of birth control because access to contraception is limited," an unnamed MSI official told the London Guardian.
"So one would expect the abortion rate to rise," the official added.
Ann Furedi, the chief executive of BPAS, agreed, and told the newspaper, "It’s true that the increase in the number of young fertile women as a result of east European immigration is nudging the abortion figures up."
"We have seen an increase in women coming to us from east European backgrounds who ask to talk over their pregnancy options and who request abortion treatment," she added.
But Kate Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, disputed the claims and said the new abortion figures showed that the rise in abortions on teenagers was responsible for the overall increase.
The statistics showed that women aged 19 had the highest abortion rates in the nation. Previously the highest rate was among women aged 20-24 years. More teenagers had abortions than the previous year and the abortion rates on teenagers is increasing.
"Most of the east Europeans in East Yorkshire have been in their 20s and there was a dip in the number of abortions in that age group," Guthrie said.
However, she did admit that women from eastern European nations were less likely to use contraception and not know where to get it in England. That could lead to higher pregnancy rates, she said.
