Pregnancy levels ‘disturbingly high’

Press, 5 December 1985, Page 55

Pregnancy levels ‘disturbingly high’

PA Wellington High levels of teen-age pregnancy and abortion in New Zealand reflect the restricted availability of contraceptive services to young women, according to a recent study by Janet Sceats, a medical demographer at Waikato Hospital. Commenting on this large-scale study of abortion in New Zealand, the president of the New Zealand Demographic Society, Dr Dick Bedford, said that pregnancy among very young women was disturbingly high, and cause for concern.

Pregnancies and births among teen-age women frequently had serious implications for the mother’s education as well as for the welfare of both mother and child, he said.

Ms Sceats’ report “Induced Abortion in New Zealand 1976-83” shows that Steen-age girls in New id are more likely to become pregnant than girls in any other developed nation, except the United „ States. Although birth rates for older teenagers are falling because of increased use of efficient contraception, pregnancy rates for girls 15 years and under have shown little improvement. This is the only age group where abortion plays an important role in fertility control in New Zealand. Among girls

under 15 years, abortions outnumber births in a ratio of two to one. Dr Bedford said that efforts must be made to ensure that all groups in the community had the in-

formation and means to regulate their fertility. No group should be forced to resort to abortion as a chief method of fertility control. The experience of the Netherlands showed that widespread education and access to contraceptive services was an effective means of achieving low levels of fertility and abortion among young teenagers.

Dr Bedford said the report provided a clear and unbiased commentary on a topic which has long been an issue of public concern in New Zealand.

Special interest groups which wished to enter the abortiton debate should take heed of the report so as to throw light rather than heat on this complex and sensitive topic, said Dr Bedford.