By Peter J. Smith
MADRID, September 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new government study released Wednesday shows the rate of abortion has increased among Spain’s young people in a country which already faces an impending demographic implosion.
According to the Spanish news agency EFE, the National Institute for Statistics reports that abortions among women under 19 in Spain rose to 8.8 abortions for every 1,000 women, up from 5.5 for every 1,000 women in 1995. Spain with a fertility rate of 1.28 (2005), faces a worsening nightmare of demographic implosion with every increased incidence of abortion, especially among young people.
The government report confirms the findings of the Institute of Family Policy (IFP), which reported that in Spain approximately one in every six pregnancies ended in abortion, and one in seven abortions were carried out by women under 19. IFP also reported that the largest percentage of Spanish women aborting were under 24 in 2003.
According to IFP, abortion rates among the youth have risen concomitantly with the government’s massive lobbying of “safe sex” programs and promotion of condom use over the years. Abortion has notably increased among younger age groups, who are the frequent targets of the government’s campaigns.
Also, the presence of abortifacient “emergency contraception” in Spain since 2001 has neither slowed nor reduced Spanish abortions as many proponents of the abortifacient birth control have claimed. In the span of a decade, abortion rates climbed 72%, according to Spain’s health ministry, to 84,985 in 2004, up from 49,367 in 1995. Meanwhile the fertility rate has halved in the 20 years of legal abortion, and for years has hovered somewhere between 1.07 (2000) and 1.28 (2005), far below the necessary replacement rate of 2.1.
While Spanish laws officially restrict abortion to situations involving rape, malformation of the baby, or threats to the physical or mental health of the mother, nearly 95.7% of all abortions are justified for concern for the mother’s health, while 2.5% are for fetal deformity, and just 0.1% for rape.