Catholic World News News Feature
Abortion rates soar in Spain November 29, 2007
Abortion now the leading cause of death in Spain, a pro-life campaigner there told the Fides news service.
Eduardo Hertfelder, the president of the Spanish Family Policy Institute (IPF), based his report on a study prepared by IPF, which shows that in 2006 there was an abortion every 5.3 minutes, or 270 abortions every day, in Spain. Roughly one in every six pregnancies-- 15.8%-- ended in abortion. Following up on the recent news of six arrests for illegal abortions in Barcelona, the Spanish newspaper ABC found the region of Catalonia is country’s abortion center, with 21 private abortion clinics. The region with the second most private abortion clinics is Andalusia, with 15, followed by Valencia with 14, and Madrid and the Basque region, each with 7.
Andalusia reported the highest number of abortions in 2005, however, with 17,683. Madrid was next with 17,356, followed by Catalonia with 16,905, Valencia with 9,257, and the Basque country with 2,383.
In 2005, 9.6 out of every 1,000 Spanish women between ages 15 and 44 aborted a baby. In 2004, the number was 8.94.
While Spain has the 6th-highest number of abortions in the European Union (after France, the United Kingdom, Romania, Italy, and Germany), Spain has experienced a 75% increase in the number of babies aborted over the last 10 years.
