Think-tank says abortion has become epidemic in Spain

Madrid, Spain, Aug 20, 2007 / 08:36 am

The Institute for Family Policy said this week that abortion has reached such massive levels in Spain that it has become a true epidemic in the country.

According to the statistics analyzed by the IFP, more than 1.1 million abortions have taken place in Spain since the practice was legalized in 1985.

During the last ten years, abortions have almost doubled with an increase of 90.5 percent, making Spain the European country with the greatest increase in the number of abortions, followed by Belgium and Holland.

IFP president Eduardo Hertfelder said 97,000 abortions took place in 2006.  “If this trend continues, in 2010 one out of every five pregnancies (125,000 annually) will end in abortion,” he said.

He noted that abortions in 200 were up six percent from 2005, and that the statistics indicate that at the very least, “266 children are not born each day in Spain because of abortion, resulting in one abortion taking place every 5.4 minutes.”

“The Ministry of Health must drastically re-orient its health and sexuality policies once their ineffectiveness has been made clear in order to stop or lessen this significant increase of abortions, which results in 266 deaths by abortion each day in Spain, making it the leading cause of mortality in Spain,” Hertfelder noted.
 
He called the government’s policies “obsolete and erroneous” and said it was “unheard-of that in these times the Ministry of Health does not want to make a distinction between abortions carried out for life or health of the mother and those carried out for psychological reasons, when these represent practically all (96.7%) abortions that take place.  “To continue hiding the reality or hiding in empty policies is not, therefore, an effective solution,” Hertfelder stated.

The IFP called for preventive measures that focus on recognizing the personal and social value of pregnancy and motherhood, and an increase in public resources for pregnant women, including financial and educational assistance.