London: With nearly half of teenaged
pregnant girls in Britain going for termination, the country
has surpassed France to become the abortion capital of Europe,
a new survey said.
According to the survey by a European pressure group,
around 48,150 abortions were carried out among girls under 20
in 2007 in Britain, against 31,779 in France, which has a
larger population.
While a total of 2,19,336 abortions were conducted in
England, Wales and Scotland in the said year, the figure for
France was 2,09,699, The Daily Mail reported.
Both countries remain far ahead of the other European
nations where abortion is frequent, including Romania at just
over 1,50,000, Italy with 1,27,000, and Spain 1,12,000 cases.
Abortion numbers are rising fastest in Spain, but from a
much lower base than in Britain.
The figures were collated by Institute for Family
Policies from those collected by the European Union's
statistical arm Eurostat.
The Norway-based pressure group presented the data to the
European Parliament yesterday as part of a report on
developments in family life.
It said the annual number of abortions in the EU equals
the combined population of its ten smallest member states.
According to experts, teenagers who become pregnant are
increasingly turning to abortion because many of them want to
continue their education and aspire a career rather than a
life of single motherhood.
Anti-abortion campaigners said the figures were an
indictment of the Government's teenage pregnancy strategy.
"Britain will continue to have record abortion levels
until ministers recognise the idiocy of these policies," said
Phyllis Bowman of Right to Life.
Britain has spent a whooping 300 million pounds in its
teenage pregnancy control programme - the Teenage Pregnancy
Strategy.
Meanwhile, authorities also feel that they believe
abortions and conceptions among teenagers are set to fall.
"The trends in the data for 2008 and under-18 conception
data for the first two quarters of 2008 give me confidence
that we will see a return to the downward trend established
between 1998 and 2006," said Children's Minister Dawn
Primarolo.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, November 12, 2009, 21:28