British Pro-Life Group Wants Parliament Not to Open Door for More Abortions
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 20, 2008
London, England (LifeNews.com) — With the British government releasing new abortion figures showing them at an all-time high and revealing the number of abortions on teenagers up significantly, a leading pro-life group is warning Parliament not to expand abortions even further.
There were 201,173 abortions in England and Wales during 2006, according to the British Health Department, an increase of four percent over 2005.
With preliminary figures from the first nine months of 2007 showing 500 more abortions than in 2006, the number continues to rise.
Meanwhile, the number of abortions on girls younger than 14 years of age rose 21 percent from 2006 to 2007 and abortions on girls between 14 and 16 rose about 11 percent.
Julia Millington of the Alive and Kicking campaign says Parliament would be wrong to expand abortions by revoking the requirement that two physicians sign off on them or allowing nurses or midwives to do abortions.
"Rather than making abortion even more widely available by allowing nurse-led medical abortion in polyclinics and GP surgeries, Parliament should be looking for legislative and social change which brings abortion rates down," she said.
Millington said lawmakers must do something about the rising number of repeat abortions and the high percentage of abortions done for birth control reasons.
"With reports of some women now having up to eight abortions is very clear that many are using abortion simply as a form of contraception – and that the government’s tired formula of condoms, coils and abortion is doing nothing to stem the tide," she added.
Millington also said there is a "widespread" practice of abortion practitioners "flouting of the law" by declaring high numbers of abortions as needed to protect a woman’s mental or physical health.
She said that flies in the face of research showing abortions causing medical or mental health problems for women.
"Abortions are clearly being carried out, not for health reasons as prescribed by the law, but purely on grounds of unwanted pregnancy, failed contraception, social inconvenience or economic difficulty masquerading as risk to the mother’s mental health," she concluded.
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