Stop and consider all your options

THE Crisis Pregnancy Agency's annual report presents research showing that 20% of pregnancies among women in their 20s end in abortion.

A significant number of these women may have made hasty decisions without availing of counselling or may suffer post-abortion syndrome, severe and long-lasting grief experienced by many women who have lost a baby in this way.

We should never forget the intense human dilemma a crisis pregnancy is for each individual woman. Many believe they have strong reasons for abortion: she may believe she is too young; she may be still at school, have just started college or her first job; she would like children in the future but does not feel ready now; she may believe that she has enough children already; she may have just returned to the workforce; the father is not her husband or partner; the pregnancy may be a result of sexual violence; she will have to give up work to care for the baby; she will be caught in a poverty trap while she rears her child...