The Eastern European nation of Hungary saw a huge drop in the number of abortions in the past five years, following an international trend.
Hungary Today reports the number of abortions dropped 22.9 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to new government data. During the first quarter of 2016, abortions dropped an additional 4.1 percent, according to the report. The reports did not indicate the number of abortions performed.
The news is encouraging, but the report indicates that Hungary’s abortion rate remains much higher than the rates in western European countries. Experts attribute the high rate to Communist rule, which oppressed Eastern European countries for decades. Tünde Fűrész told the daily Magyar Hírlap that there is one abortion for every three live births in Hungary, compared to the average of one abortion for every five births in Europe.
In Hungary, abortions are legal up to 12 weeks for basically any reason and later in certain circumstances. In 2012, the country took a step toward protecting unborn babies by recognizing them in the country’s constitution, LifeNews reported.
Susan Yoshihara of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, reported that the new law says, “Embryonic and foetal life shall be entitled to protection and respect from the moment of conception,” and the state should encourage “homely circumstances” for child care. However, it did not outlaw abortions.
A May report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found that abortion rates are dropping to all-time lows in North America and Europe. The continent with the largest drop was Europe, falling a full 79 percent, according to the report.
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The statistics, compiled by the World Health Organization and the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute and published in The Lancet, showed a staggering 56 million unborn babies were aborted in the world in 2014.
Because of population growth, the number of abortions rose across the globe, from 50.4 million per year in 1990–94 to 56.3 million per year in 2010–14, according to the report. However, the data indicated that a smaller percentage of women are having abortions.
Overall, the global abortion rate is estimated at 35 abortions annually per every 1,000 women of childbearing age, down from 40 per 1,000 in the 1990s, according to the report. That means about one in four pregnancies across the world ends in abortion, CBS reported.
Pro-lifers with the Family Research Council and the Global Life Campaign later analyzed the data and argued that the astronomically high abortion numbers likely were “wildly inflated.” They said only 12.4 million abortions worldwide could be verified with reliable data.
According to their analysis, some of the data came from reliable sources such as government agencies; however, other data, especially in countries where abortion is illegal, came from unreliable studies with questionable data collection methods.
