Recession spurs increase in abortions

AN increasing number of couples are choosing to have an abortion because of financial worries, according to a crisis pregnancy counselling service.

PACT, an advice service funded by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA), said women and couples struggling financially were increasingly under pressure to consider their options when a crisis pregnancy occurred.

Berit Andersen, a counsellor with PACT, said before the recession there was always a sense of being somehow able to cope, but now that was not the case. “These are couples who may already have two or three children and the cost of another is simply not manageable,” she said. “We are increasingly seeing women who say: ‘I never thought I’d see myself here’.”

Dr Stephanie O’Keefe, research and policy manager with the CPA, said that women and couples who would not previously have thought of a pregnancy as a “crisis” now did.

“Certainly the pool is getting bigger. There are women who already have children and were not planning on another. Whereas this would be OK in other circumstances, if your job is on the line or your partner lost his job, then the pregnancy can be seen as a crisis.”

Dr O’Keefe said it was a myth that crisis pregnancy counselling was for single or younger women. More so, she said, it was women who would just be starting out in their career.

Ms Andersen said she was “very surprised” that women still experienced high levels of discrimination when it came to pregnancy in the workplace.

“We do see it regularly. We recently spoke with a woman very high up in the corporate world who was afraid of what going on maternity leave in the current climate might mean. Women are wondering: ‘Will I get back in, will the company think I am not doing my bit?’ It is another factor,” she said.