Aust. abortions tallied

Press, 7 March 1978, Page 10

Aust. abortions tallied

I PA Wellington ! At least 428 women flew ; from New Zealand to Australia for abortions in the four weeks between January 28 and February 24, the Auckland Medical Aid trust said. The trust, which used to ' i run the Aotea Clinic, re- } leased a written statement giving details of 296 I women who had had abortions at four Sydney clinics during the four weeks. Of the 296 women. 142 came from Auckland. 31 from Wellington, 13 from Christchurch, 14 from Hamilton, 10 from New ; Plymouth, and 86 from other places. Their ages, which i ranged from 14 to 47, were j broken down as follows: Under 20 . . 147 [ 21 to 35 . . 130 36 and over .. 16 Unknown .. 3 There appeared to be no ; significant correlation of ; age with origin, the trust | _said: The oldest and the ;

voungest were just as likely to have come from small towns or big cities. In addition to the 296 women detailed by the trust, three Sisters’ Overseas Service branches have reported that they referred another 132 women to Australian abortion

services in the same period. “The number of women who were referred by their individual practitioners to clinics other than those for which the statistics have been gathered is unknown,” said the statement.