Abortion rate highest ever - I'm sorry I just don't buy the reason suggested for this...

[CountessDracula]

"But pregnancy advice groups said the figures probably reflected poor access to contraceptive services"

What utter tosh

You can buy condoms in many loos in clubs and pubs. In any chemist or 24hour shop.

You have access to family planning clinics and doctors with free contraception

You can buy the morning after pill over the counter ffs

Shouldn't people take a bit more responsibility and get themselves to these places and get some bloody contraception?

AFAIK, HIV is on the increase amongst young heterosexuals , as the myth still persists you can only get it if you are homosexual......the same silly myths about pregnancy still abound to some extent

ie can;t get pregnant the first time / standing up/ on your period

so things have not moved on that much in 15 years or so

i think regardless of how well it is taught in schools, as parents we have the ultimate responsibility to teach our children about sexual relationships and the physical and emotional consequences thereof

a recent thread about a 12 year old getting pregnant showed that there is still a lot of reliance on schools teaching kids about sex, about the myths that still do the rounds and the 'i'm alright, i have sons/ my kids will have too much self respect/ it would;t happen in my family....' opinions are still out there

there is not one answer to teen pregnancy, abortion increase and general ignorance....

there is less stigma possibly attached to abortion, which is a good thing in some ways but whatever stigma or lack of, there will alsways be a tiny minority of women who use it as contraception...

i am pro choice, and pro education and pro openess about these issues...

it is certainly a worthwhile debate

and however well taught sex ed is there will always be a proportion of teens or anyone having sex, who is too embarrassed to see about adequate contraception...IMO

people absolutely should take more responsibility. without a doubt..but it is making people do that

think alcohol certainly has a role to play in people making bad choices or no choice about using contraception....

Also if women want to leave having families and perhaps marriage/long term partner later then they have longer beforehand in which to have an unwanted pg .

drink and drug binges

I think in my day (!) you had to get the pill from the docotr, chemists didn't have them iirc

yup, I reckon like katz, that abortion is just more acceptable (and easier to organise).

I went for the MAP once, with 2 dds in tow. Condom had split, dont want any more children, Oh the embarresment. A 10 minutes survey with my kids whinging next to me, pharmasist in no hurry to complete the fecking survey.
Wouldnt do it again in a hurry.
If I had been 15 I would have scarpered. Then needed an abortion.

We used to go to the family planning clinic which was mortifying as one of my friends' mothers worked there and she would glower at us

WE STILL BLOODY WENT THOUGH

I agree, Miaou!

There's a case up here, where a man has been found guilty of a criminal offense for infecting his girlfriend w/HIV and HepC knowingly.

However, the woman in question had consensual sex with him over a 5 month period with no condom because he refused to use one.

I feel sorry for her, but hey, whatever happened to personal responsibility here??

You know.

CD - what's your theory?????

But CD keeping a supply of MAPS implies planning. And if you planned, you wouldn't plan such an expensive and unhealthy method, would you?

Also agree that it is expensive and people aren't rational. Babies are much more expensive than MAP's, but people cross their fingers and hope they won't need the MAP. Stupid, but well, that's life.

Can you still get the MAP from the GP, or do they tell you to piss off and buy it?

CD is right - drinking and bing drinking are NOT new....I must have spent about half (okay well maybe a quarter!) of my college and early work life out on the piss, and I never once ended up having unprotected sex (that may be influenced by the fear of God being instilled into me in holy Catholic Ireland, but I think that topic was done to death earlier this week.)
It is NOT AN EXCUSE.

Do you have to fill in a questionnaire to get the MAP? [sheltered life icon]

Same here, Imafairy.

No, Caligula - but you do have to be "counselled" (that's code for trying to get the buggy containing your impatient and bored toddler into a tiny room in Boots with an embarrassed male pharmacist who can't quite meet your eye and says things like "so when...erm...was the...er, you know...deed done, so to speak?")

I got pregnant by "mistake" once. To be honest I am surprised that it didn't happen earlier we were very hit and miss with contraception. We didn't even consider abortion though although the timing was not the best for us. Ds is wonderful and I wouldn't change him for the world.

I wonder how many of these abortions are not young drunk feckless one night stand situations but people in long term relationships who just want to put off child rearing until later.

I've taken the MAP a couple of times. It was a while ago but the chemist gives you a bit of a grilling and warns you that taking it 3 times or more can have an adverse effect on your fertility. Not sure if that was a scare tactic though.

I'd be interested to see what age group of women are having the highest ammount of abortions tbh. I'm not convinced its all the young stupid girls people presume it to be when first hearing these things.
I think Lizs has a point with women wanting to wait a lot longer these days to start a family, and are more likely to have an abortion if caught out.
Not so long ago I don't imagine that would have been happening.

its a bit pathetic tbh - you can buy a bloody 'cock ring' in boots - sex is plastered on every billboard and soap opera in britain - these couples are lazy and dim.
i am not anti abortion but these people are taking the piss

who are "these people" notanotter?

the majority of compus mentis 'adults' old enough to know better who dont use contraception - you are not saying these were all ill educated 14 year olds who were sober at the time?

It is of course the job of the spinners for preganancy advice groups to say that more of their resource is needed.

My own guess is that it's a function of AIDS "education". A big problem is that too little research is done into what people learn, not what they are told.
Huge emphasis is placed upon condoms as both contraception and infection prevention.

Condoms require a degree of planning that many young people simply aren't up to. There are social issues with women carrying them, and in any culture a contraception measure that requires (often) drunk young men to show planning ability is doomed to failure.

Also there are demogrpahic issues. Far more kids are going to university, and the male female ratio is now far closer to 50/50, which means a lot of freelance sex, rather than the sort where contraception is planned.

At my college in thr 1980s girls were sought out and had the pill foisted upon them by the medics. Trying the same thing with condoms will reduce infection rates, but critically affect failure rates.

Also there is a rise in borderline methods such as devices which try to look at your cycle by temperature, telling you when to use a condom. May make sense for older women in stable relationships but for teenagers, you might as well send them to a fertilisation clinic.

carry a condom is an age old message.
I am sure if women had to pay for abortions the pregnancy rates would drop
harsh but true

but didn't these figures come out of Marie Stopes, which provides private abortions?

In other words, these are people who paid for their abortion.

I've used the MAP (which worked, but would have opted for termination later if I'd found out it hadn't) when a condom failed.

I used MAP after condom failure with a boyfriend.

Fell pregnant.

Had a miscarriage, but was going to go through with it.

I was 30, not 14.

i am sure you are in the minority then expat
I too have taken MAP several times in the 80's when it made you sick and wretched for days
I have also used only condoms for years with current dp
I have only had one 'accident' and that was my first child
My fault
My failing
My stupidity

i did have other times when i was too pissed/shy/stupid to use contraception - i used the MAP it never failed for me