This article is from page 2 of the 2014-06-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
THE NUMBER of Clare women travelling to the UK for abortions dropped by 14 per cent last year, however more than one woman from Clare every week makes this journey according to British Department of Health figures.
Reasons given for the decrease in the number travelling for the 12th consecutive year vary from better sex education to the availability of the morning after pill, and post abortion remorse to the cost of the procedure.
While “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Choice” groups disagree about the reason for the fewer abortions, both agree that the number of Clare women andgirls travelling is higher than the 55 officially recorded in notification forms returned to the Chief Medical Officers of England and Wales.
They also agree that the overall number opting for abortion is de- creasing. CEO of the Irish Family Planning Association Niall Behan said that for certain more than 55 women from Clare travelled for an abortion last year.
Many of these women did not register their address with the clinic or gave an English address.
Others travelled from Clare to the Netherlands.
According to the HSE’s Crisis Pregnancy Programme 1,503 more women present to them for post abortion care following a termination in the Netherlands between 2005 and 2011.
This number too is expected to be higher in reality.
In 2013, 3,679 Irish women in total travelled to England and Wales for abortions, down from 3,982 in 2012, a 7.6 per cent decrease.
The number of women who travelled from Clare for an abortion has decreased by 14 per cent from 64 to 55 in the same period.
In a statement welcoming the con- tinuing reduction in the number of Irish women travelling to Britain for abortion, Cora Sherlock of the Pro Life Campaign said;
“While it is difficult to draw firm conclusions, a recent report from the HSE/Crisis Pregnancy Programme showed an increase in the number of women expressing abortion regret.
“In that study, 44 per cent of women expressed varying degrees of regret about their abortions up from 33 per cent in a similar HSE study in 2003,” she said.
Speaking to The Clare People the IFPA said it could not say for certain why the number of recorded Irish abortions abroad had decreased but there was evidence to suggest that better sex education and a change in attitude to sex and contraception played a major role.
Welcoming the reduction in numbers Mr Behan said a decrease in the number of new teenage mothers in Ireland also pointed to better sex education in Ireland.
The availability of contraception, especially emergency contraception such as the morning after pill, as well as the establishment of the Crisis Pregnancy Programme by the HSE in 2001 also played a role, he said.
He raised concerns for women living in the county who could not travel for a termination for reason of expense, lack of a visa or women with a disability that made it difficult to exercise this option.
“So what happens theses women with an unwanted pregnancies? Many resort to buying medication on line, which is unsupervised and very dangerous,” he said.
The cost of an abortion in England and Wales is estimated between € 600 and € 2,000 – depending on the clinic cost, travel cost, procedure cost and accommodation.
During recession many women cannot find such money and resort to finding cheap and medically unspervised solutions online, according to the IFPA.