Family institute says more than half of teen pregnancies in Spain end in abortion

Madrid, Spain, Sep 24, 2009 / 22:33 pm

The Institute for Family Policy in Spain said this week that more than half of teen pregnancies in the country end in abortion and blamed the current law on abortion and the use of the morning-after pill for the problem.
 
The Institute reported that in 2007, 29,036 of the 604,665 abortions that year were performed on girls under the age of 20.  Of the almost 30,000 teen pregnancies in Spain, 13,789 resulted in the mother giving birth, while 15,307 (53 %) ended in abortion.
 
According to the president of the Institute, Eduardo Hertfelder, while the percentage of abortions among teens in the European Union is 43 percent, in Spain it is 53 percent.  “In addition, while in Europe there has been a slow increase over the last 10 years from 39 to 43 percent, the increase in Spain has been explosive, going from 39 to 53 percent,” Hertfelder noted.
 
“The administration must realize that it has to radically change obsolete policies that year after year are demonstrable failures,” he insisted. 

“The ideological and sectarian blindness in the indiscriminate promotion of the morning-after pill among teens can no longer be maintained; nor can the new law on abortion as proposed by the government, which will provoke an increase in the number of teen abortions,” Hertfelder said.