Abortion shock follows Pill scare

BY A STAFF REPORTER
THE NUMBER OF abortions in this country rose by 10 per ' cent following last year's scare over the safety of certain contraceptive pills, according to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).
. In a report published this week, the BPAS says that among its 28 clinics there were an extra 823 abortions over the number that would normally be expected in the three-month period from December last year to February this year.
The increase is a direct result of women being driven to stop taking oral contraceptives, as a result of fear for their health.
The charity, which performs almost 18 per cent of legal abortions in England and Wales, says that the majority of the 11.2 per cent increase can be attributed to the pill scare last October, when the Government said that seven of the most popular brands could cause an increased risk of blood clots.
The BPAS survey was carried out soon after the Committee on the Safety of medicines issued its warning that 1.5 million women taking the "third generation" pill were twice as likely to suffer from thrombosis as those on other types of oral contraceptives.
Following the Government scare, GPs were deluged with calls from frantic women. BPAS dealt with 8,186 abortions between December and the end of February, compared with 7,363 for the same period a year earlier.
A survey of local health authorities by the BBC's consumer affairs programme Watchdog Healthc heck, screened on Monday night, also confirms that women were panicked into risking unwanted pregnancies in the months following the pill scare.
The survey discovered that 80 per cent of those able to supply statistics recorded increases in the rate of NHS abortions since the scare, and that in one area abortions recorded in January and February doubled over the same period.
The total number of abortions worldwide is likely to have been between 3,000 and 5,000, a BPAS spokesman confirmed.
In Bristol, the number of women seeking abortions doubled.
Maternity units around the country are preparing for a baby boom as some women choose to continue their :unplanned and sometimes unwanted pregnancies.