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Tuesday 8 July 2008

Abortion

Something struck me whilst perusing the BBC's latest coverage of the abortion debate. The graph at the bottom of the article surprised me, I had assumed that a) abortions had increased and b) the number of late abortions had increased. The graph, reproduced here... actually seems to show that:
1. the number of abortions that have taken place after 20 weeks has increased but is still at a comparatively very low level
2. the number of abortions carried out between 13 and 19 weeks has reduced by a larger amount than the increase in over 20 weeks abortions
3. the number of abortions carried out between 9 and 12 weeks has reduced greatly
4. the number of abortions carried out before 9 weeks has increased greatly

So the "problem" of late abortions seems to be less urgent than the possible problem that early abortion is being used as an alternative to contraception.

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