.- The Political Institute for the Family (IPF) has sent a letter to Spanish Health Minister, Ana Pastor, demanding the publication of data concerning the number of abortions which took place in Spain in 2002.
Eduardo Hertfelder, President of the IPF, lamented that well into 2004—when the rest of the demographic indicators for 2003 have been published—the Department of Health has still not made public the data from 2002.
According to the IPF, some areas in the country published the data a long time ago, such as Valencia, where abortions were up in 2002 13.7% from 2001. If this data was applied to the rest of Spain, the result would be around 80,000 abortions, meaning one abortion every 6½ minutes.
For Hertfelder it is unheard-of that for a such serious problem as the explosion in the number of abortions in Spain—in 2001 there 70,000, which means that 15% of pregnancies end in abortion and that therefore an abortion would take place every 7 minutes—the Administration is working with data that is 2 or 3 years old, showing the lack of interest in dealing with the problem.
The IPF, said Hertfelder, believes the Health Department should drastically reorient its policy on health and sexuality once it is shown to be ineffective, in order to better prevent and diminish this large increase of abortions.
