Thursday 15th June, 2006

Family Life International is cautiously optimistic about the drop in NZ abortions

Family Life International is cautiously optimistic about today’s news that the number of induced abortions in New Zealand in 2005 dropped by 680 abortions, or 3.7 percent.

“Any drop in the number of abortions is excellent news, but the overall figure of 17, 511 abortions in New Zealand in 2005 shows that we have a long way to go yet”says Family Life International media spokesperson; Brendan Malone.

“That’s 17, 511 kiwi lives lost last year, and almost as many women being exposed to the serious physical and psychological risks that abortion presents.”

“Family Life International hopes that today’s good news is just the start of a continuing downward trend in the number of abortions being carried out in this country. In 1992, and 1994 we saw a drop in the number of New Zealand abortions, but those figures increased again the following year.”

“It has been two years in a row now that the number of induced abortions has decreased, so there is certainly cause for hope, but we still have much work to do in making sure that complacency and a false sense of security does not creep in and result in an increase in the number of abortions in coming years. We still have a lot of work to do.”

The latest statistics show that women aged 20 to 24 still make up the biggest group of women having abortions.

“This is especially concerning for us because we know that this means that in coming years there are going to be a lot of New Zealand women who have to deal with post abortion trauma and other possible psychological and physical effects of abortion”said Mr Malone.

ENDS

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