EUROPE/SPAIN - Abortion now the main cause of death in Spain

Madrid (Agenzia Fides) - "Abortion is now the main cause of death in Spain" says Eduardo Hertfelder - President of the Spanish Family Policy Institute (IPF) - in the presentation of a report "Abortion in Spain: 21 years on (1985-2006)” to be released by the IPF soon. According to the report in 2006 there was an abortion every 5.3 minutes, or 270 abortions every day. One in every six pregnancies ended in abortion (15.8 per cent in 2006).
IPF accuses the administration of lack of transparency and little desire to tackle this serious issue. IPF says "Spain's tragic demographic unbalance which would need at least 105,000 more births a year, could be set right if policies were established to enable mothers would otherwise for lack of information or support have recourse to abortion, to keep their babies".
IPF calls for preventive policies articulated along four points: increase awareness on the importance and personal and social value of child bearing, pregnancy and motherhood; increase in public resources; introduction of measures to assist pregnant women; policies to guarantee information for pregnant women.
Numerous organisations have demanded a revision of the law on abortion, seeing the numbers of related abuses. Benigno Blanco, president of the Spanish Family Forum said, "there exists more than enough evidence to prove that many clinics fail to respect the de-penalised hypothesis or the set interruption of pregnancy terms ". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 28/11/2007; righe 19, parole 244)