The report that the number of women having abortions after 35 is rising comes as a shock to those who presume that the termination of unwanted pregnancy is something only done by irresponsible teenagers. One would think that by the age of 35-plus women would have some idea how things work. In reality it’s not so.
Data from the Department for Health shows that around a third of all abortions in England and Wales last year were repeat procedures, with over 1,000 women having a fourth termination.
Last year 29,471 women aged 35 or over had abortions, up from 28,129 in 2014. Among women aged 45 or older, there were 686.
The abortion rate for women aged 35 and over went up from 6.8 per 1,000 women in 2005 to 7.8 in 2015, while the total number of terminations for all age groups rose to 191,014, a 0.7 per cent compared to 2014.
Just over half of all women who had abortions already had children, and nearly three quarters had a partner or were married.
Peter D Williams of campaign group Right To Life was quoted on Breitbart News as saying: “Today’s abortion stats highlight the dark reality of abortion in the UK, and the necessity of humanising of attitudes towards the unborn child and ridding society of the unjust discrimination that abortion enables.”
