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?

aderyneryn - the coil does work by preventing implantation. it just does.

doesnt always work eityher. my mum (a mw) has delivered babies, plural, with coils held in their fists..., persistant little buggers lol

Ader it isn't a myth though.click the link in bundles post and then click on IUD...

only one person has brought up the self esteem issues involved. that palys a part with younger girls v often.

and these figures are for paid for abortions and older women, so yes; they are not the yound feckless people you are presuming...

and even the people who are emotionally unaffected by their abortion/s dont do it as a form of contraception - thats just bollox.

i had abortions when i was young. plural, yes. and the reasons i got into those situations are complicated and private actually. and how much they affected me emotionally... well thats complicated too. but i certainly did not view it as a contraception method, and i had dangerous sex about a million times more often than i had abortions!

i think sex education should be more than a 1/2 hour session at school, that older women too could benefit from sex discussion, rather than having a couple of leaflets thrown at them.

and i do believe also that the idea that there are hundreds of contraceptive choices available to us all is just plain bullshit.

But it works primariliy by preventing fertilisation.

why is it bullshit
there are quite a few available!

Nappies galore, I personally don't think that it is always used as contraception, but believe it or not it is used as such by some people...I know of to many, tbh...

I re-iterate

I am not anti abortion I am pro it

I was wondering why the abortion rate is going up and up if we do have such readily available contraception

Ader it stops fertilisation BECAUSE it makes implantation impossible (or should at least)

doh, had a wire crossed there...it doesn't stop fertilisation, it stops the fertilised egg implanting...trying to be fast tehre:

from teh link posted downbelow:
The coil, more generally known as intra-uterine contraceptive devices (IUCDs) are certainly still used. There are several different types and they have different benefits. They work by preventing the fertilised egg from implanting in the lining of the womb.

as I understand it the coil allows fertilisation but prevents implantation. I haven't used it because of this.

Erm, doesn't fertilization occur prior to implantation?!

Would you consider providing a MAP just in case for your teenage daughter? I had to have one earlier in the year and the grilling from the pharmacist in sainsburys was excruciatingly embarrassing. I don't reckon many teens could bear it. And it cost £22 which many teens would probably rather risk pregnancy than pay.

My own mum put me on the pill for "heavy periods" the minute I got a boyfriend. I am so glad she did as I remember condoms being very hit and miss.

I am glad that abortions are available to those that want them. I understand that many women have one without regrets. I am glad that I have never had to have one as I would be really gutted, personally.

if you dont want hormones, what options are there?
and if you cant have a coil either (and people who havnt had babies shouldnt since their uterus is not stretched enough)?
and if you dont wanyt a coil without hormones, for the very reason that it works the way aderynon refuses to beleive it does, and it makes periods heavier and more painful, and if youre very fortile doesnt even work anyway... !!

so that leaves...
condoms - and in long term relationships where std's are not a concern, and you simply dont physically enjoy the feel of them...
the soonto be unavailable cap - which you have to plan your shag 1/2 an hour bofore doing, so much for spntaneity, or any chance of a shag when you have toddlers/kids
the sponge thing? does that still exist? did anyone ever use it?

No-one's mentioned men in all this.

What contribution are men making to the rise in abortions, do we think?

Why don't they have diagphragms any more?

i turn into cod when i type in a hurry

I agree with slug - there are certainly women who post on MN who've had terminations they don't regret in the slightest. As well as pregnancies they've taken to term through choice.

I wonder how many women do, actually, carry condoms or have them available? I used to, but I think I was unusual.

I wonder if there's any pattern in the age of the women/girls having abortions? Because under 18s don't have such brilliant access to condoms and are more likley to be shy about buying them.

Also there's the morning after pill - it's expensive over the counter isn't it?

Caligula

excellent point!

it's all very well putting all of this onto women - why is there still not a 'male pill'??????

um, could it be that all contraception is 'women's business' (presumably along with periods and other un-manly issues)

or maybe blokes are just too frightened at the concept of tampering with their alter-egos? - whereas culturally its always been deemed acceptable to tamper with women and their fertile 'bits' because women need controlling perhaps?????

If you google "How does an IUD work" the primary reason given is that it prevents fertilization. Secondary is that it prevents implantation should fertilization occur.

I can understand women not being comfortable using a copper IUD just incase but it's not fair to go around saying that the primary way it works is to prevent implantation.

exactly ss. cant they think of any other way??

and caligula - yes!! men are clearly involved in every single one of these unplanned pregnancies, yet at the end of the day, its all down to us to deal with the nitty gritty. no change there then

Agree with slug, there's a social construct these days, very successfully put about by the anti-abortion lobby, that 'abortion is always psychologically damaging'. You don't hear women who have had abortions and are unscarred talking about it because it's socially unacceptable to say so. None of the people I know who have had abortions are traumatised.

The idea that women who have abortions are feckless is a result of the age-old feeling that women who are sexually active are bad and threatening. Still underpins attitudes to women in our society - not just from men, but from women themselves. It's very rare for anyone to even mention men in these debates. It's OK for men to have sex, not OK for women, it seems.

Aderyneryn - i am very very fertile. so if i had a copper coil then my eggs would get fertilized close to every single month, and then i would have, technically, a miscarriage - with painful cramps and heavy bleeding - while it stops the fertilized agg implanting. right up till it failed, at which point id carry a baby to term with the sodding thing in its hand.

it is pretty far from being an option. for me.

But it's not just men's involvement in the actual conception. It's their involvement in the decision about the abortion.

IMO because being a single parent is so utterly unattractive, men often have an effective veto on women's fertility. If he's happy you're pregnant, you get to keep your baby. If he's not, you have two very unattractive options before you - being a lone parent or having a termination. (I'm obviously only talking about cases where women don't definitely want to have a termination.)