ABORTIONS in Spain rose last year by 2.98% to 106,172 with women aged 20 years or under accounting for nearly 11% of terminations.
Health Minister, Monica Garcia, said that the abortion rate stood at 12.36 per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44 years of age.
There was a significant increase among females who were non-Spanish residents.
READ MORE:
- Spain to enshrine gay marriage and abortion rights into its constitution so ‘they cannot be undone in the future’
- International Women’s Day: Spanish Health Minister announces new measures to ensure equal abortion rights
Speaking on Wednesday, Garcia said that three out of four terminations were carried out within eight weeks.
She said that more needed to be done to increase the use of contraception, as in almost half of the reported abortions, no prevention had been used.
Most abortions were carried out in private clinics- accounting for 78.74% of the total.
94.62% of terminations were performed at the request of the woman, in accordance with the law.
Garcia said that the trend of women having to resort to private treatment was unsatisfactory.
“For example, in Madrid, in the last 10 years, there have been 162,000 abortions of which only 177 have been carried out in public hospitals,” she commented.
She pointed out that not a single voluntary termination was carried out last year within public health facilities in Extremadura, Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid and Murcia.
Seven out of ten women across Spain were initially treated within the health system and prescribed medication to induce an abortion.
Garcia said that this was ‘safer and less invasive’.
She added that the Health Ministry is working to ensure that the law is followed and that women can use the public health service ‘without obstacles and variation between different regions’.
Click here to read more Health News from The Olive Press.
