Latest figures show drop in abortion rate

The latest Irish abortion figures released on 25th May 2010 (Statistical Bulletin, Summary Abortion Statistics, England and Wales: 2009) show another drop in the numbers of Irish women travelling to Britain for abortion. In 2009, 4,422 Irish women travelled to Britain for abortions, down from 4,600 for the previous year. It is the eighth consecutive year that Irish abortions have declined after more than a decade of upward trends.

That’s a drop of a third over the eight years since the figures peaked in 2001. It represents a fall in the abortion rate among Irish women having abortions in Britain from 7.3 per 1000 women in the Republic, aged 15 to 44, in 2001 to 4.4 in 2009. The rate for residents of England and Wales is 17.5, four times the Republic’s rate.

The figures are all the more astonishing given the increase in the Irish population in recent years from three to four and a half million. If the culture was as supportive of abortion as Marie pro-choice groups claim, then you would expect a rising number of abortions as the number of women of child-bearing age increases. But that’s not happening. On the contrary, the number and the rate are falling.

The decline in numbers kicked in before Ireland's Crisis Pregnancy Agency started its work in this area, and anyway the approach they have taken has mirrored the British approach to pregnancy reduction which has had no noticeable impact in reducing abortion numbers there, so they cannot be responsible for the sea change in behaviour since 2001.

Some have suggested the reduction in abortions may be as a result of more Irish women opting for abortions in other European countries. But there is no statistical evidence to back up these claims. Holland is often mentioned as a country where more Irish women may increasingly travel for abortions but the official Dutch figures in recent years show little or no change in the number of abortions on foreign nationals.

So why are more and more Irish women who find themselves with an unexpected pregnancy opting to have their baby and bring up their baby themselves, rather than go to England for an abortion?

Clearly, a lot more research needs to be done on this issue to find out the real reasons why more women are opting against abortion with a view to accelerating the downward trend. There is certainly growing anecdotal evidence that more and more women are sharing their negative experiences of abortion with others. We have also now reached a stage where everyone knows lots of women who have made the choice to have their baby and be a little family with them, and this means that anyone facing an unexpected pregnancy knows personally how several of their friends have managed and coped, and that is feeding into their decision to have their own baby.

The Unborn Child - One of Us

Each of us has a unique beginning

Modern science clearly shows that human life begins at conception. It is therefore entitled to all the protections the rest of us enjoy.

• 18 days after conception the baby's heart is beating.
• At 8 weeks everything to be found in a fully grown person is formed.
• At 11 weeks fingerprints and fingernails appear.
• At 12 weeks the baby's lips open and close. It turns its head and can leap around the womb.
• At 16 weeks the baby reacts to sound, sucks, swallows and yawns.
• At 18 weeks most mothers feel the baby's movements. By pushing with its feet and head, the baby exercises its developing muscles. The baby now sucks its thumb.
• At 20 weeks the baby sleeps and wakes like a born baby.
• At 24 weeks the baby continues moving, hearing and perhaps even dreaming.
• At 30-40 weeks the baby, if left undisturbed, will grow stronger until it's time to be born.
  

We all travelled a similar amazing journey towards birth.

Watch a short video to see wonderful imagery of the unborn child here

Movie dealing with abortion to feature at Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes Film Festival next month is to premier a new film called 22 Weeks. It tells the true story of Angele, a woman in her 30s who had an abortion in Florida in 2005.

She chose what was called a ‘labour and delivery’ type of abortion, which was to take two days. She opted for this rather than other forms of abortion, which she felt would be more distressing and harmful for her baby.

The film is significant for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it will show graphically the mindset of the abortionists in action. An abortion is a procedure the entire intention, aim and purpose of which is that the baby does not survive. Sometimes a baby does not die during the procedure but is deliberately left to die after it.

Secondly, it will give us a sense of how profoundly misguided some politicians are on the issue. As a State senator in Illinois, President Obama voted against a Bill to protect babies who survive abortions.

But thirdly and most importantly, it is a testimony to the confused and suddenly traumatic experience of the mother.

Driven by who knows what pressure to opt for abortion, Angele allowed herself to be seduced by the soothing reassurances of the abortionists, which at one level she wanted to believe.

She asked them what would happen if the baby were born alive and they said ‘they would guide a needle into his heart and it would put him to sleep, and he wouldn’t feel anything.’

She took pills to induce labour and by the time she arrived at the abortion clinic she was experiencing painful contractions, but it was not open. The contractions were getting closer. Eventually she got in and delivered her son, apparently on her own.

Then suddenly she sees. She sees her baby for the first time in the flesh. Fighting for his life. And her motherliness awakens and she calls for help. Surely they will look after him.

When a women working in the abortion clinic staff arrived, she refused the give her baby emergency medical care or to call a 911 for medical help for him. Angele called a friend to ring for an ambulance, but the clinic staff turned them away when they arrived and he died.

That terrible journey made at the speed of light from dreamlike denial to full waking, seeing her baby face to face, real at last but too late, is a precious part of women’s experience of abortion.

22 weeks is yet another straw in the wind that shows the cultural consensus on abortion is turning.