Nearly 25% of UK women in 20s have had an abortion: survey

by Hilary White

• London, November 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The UK’s Daily Mail this week finished a three-part series on the sexual habits of modern Britons with a feature linking casual sex and Britain’s notoriously high rates of abortion among single women.

The Mail’s survey showed that almost half of British women (48%) in their 20s have had a one-night stand. For women in their 30s and 40s, the percentage was 46 and 45 percent, respectively. Twenty-three per cent of women in their 20s have had at least one abortion, with 17 and 22 per cent for women in their 30s and 40s.

More than one-third of women surveyed in their 50s have had casual sexual encounters.

Anthony Ozimic, communications officer for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told LifeSiteNews.com that the pro-abortion lobby is largely to blame for having created this sexual free-for-all that is damaging women.

“In every field of human activity or science,” he said, “young people are taught that good habits help them to avoid bad consequences - except in the field of sex and relationships.”

The Mail said, however, that few women expressed any regret at their behavior. One woman, 46-year-old Jayne Price Cambridge, was among the few who said she wished she had not slept around in her younger days. “Sadly, while at the time I thought I was just having fun, it is a part of my past I wish I could erase,” she said.

Ashleigh Taylor, 25, shared her story with the Mail of a one-night-stand that she had before entering university, and the long term psychological consequences of the abortion that followed.

“For two days after the termination I lay in bed, shocked and exhausted — it was horrendous. I told Mum I had a very heavy period.

“Then I went back to my job and, three months later, started university. I coped by blanking it out. And, although I still believe I did the right thing, I’m paranoid about getting pregnant again and haven’t had a successful relationship since the abortion.”

Of her one-night encounter, Ashleigh said, “It was an isolated moment of madness and one I bitterly regret,’ she says. ‘But I couldn’t have brought a baby into the world at that time.’

“The pro-abortion lobby is squarely to blame for the heart-breaking damage inflicted on countless numbers of young women through dysfunctional relations with men,” said Ozimic about the Mail’s findings. “It is the pro-abortion lobby that have sold young women the lie that sex can safely be separated from love, marriage and children.

“Women were at the forefront of the much-derided Victorian-era campaigns to reform public morals, precisely because women and their children, both born and unborn, were the main victims of irresponsible sexual behaviour.”

The Mail quoted Dr. Andrew Fergusson of the Christian Medical Fellowship, saying, “We have reached a point where abortion is seen as just another method of contraception. For years, the effects have been swept under the carpet and evidence is only just beginning to emerge of real physical and psychological implications for some of the women who have abortions.”

“There is also evidence of increased suicide attempts and episodes of depression among women who have had abortions.”

For women in unexpected pregnancies, abortion is routinely offered by medical practitioners as the only solution. Amy Connolly, 28, a receptionist from South-West London, told the Mail that when she became “accidentally” pregnant, “Neither my GP nor anyone else suggested I might have the baby.”

“I expected to feel relief after the termination. Instead, I felt grief and huge self-loathing. I’d ended a life.”