There’s a good friend of mine — I’ll call her Sarah — who’s a fantastic, devoted and loving mother. She’s in her early-40s, has two young children whom she simply adores, and a wonderful loving husband, whom she’s been with since university.
There’s a comfortable home, a good job and a supportive network of friends and family. So why, last year, when she accidentally got pregnant (despite using contraception) did this nurturing and responsible mother choose to have an abortion? Because she and her husband realised they couldn’t afford to have another child.
‘It’s the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,’ she told me, the sadness and guilt clear in the hushed tone of her voice. ‘I would dearly love to have another baby, and I feel terrible about what happened. But we discussed it and we’ve realised we can’t possibly manage another one, not without destroying the life we’ve built for our family. It wouldn’t be fair.’
The Office for National Statistics figures reveal that abortion rates are now at a record high, with one in four pregnancies in England and Wales ending in a termination in 2018 (stock image)
Whatever you may think of their decision, Sarah is not an anomaly; she’s not even the only one of my friends to have confessed to having an abortion for those reasons. And the latest statistics, released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday, appear to reflect this.
They reveal that abortion rates are now at a record high, with one in four pregnancies in England and Wales ending in a termination in 2018 — that’s 205,295. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, it’s hard not to think that’s an astonishing figure.
They also show that, wherever you live, even within the same city, abortion rates increase as levels of deprivation increase. In other words, the less money a woman has, the more likely she is to have an abortion, whatever her age.
Yet the abortion rates haven’t been driven up by irresponsible teenagers — teen pregnancy rates have actually fallen by 60 per cent since 1999. It’s adult women, who are deciding they are unable to go through with having a baby, at an age when, ironically, nature would much prefer them to have them.
The highest number of abortions are being had by women in their early to mid-20s (35 per cent of conceptions in this age range lead to abortion), and in women in their 40s, like Sarah, for whom there’s a 30 per cent abortion rate. Interestingly, more than half (56 per cent) of these women have previously given birth.
Alarmingly, at the same time, the conception rate has fallen to its lowest level since 2014. As has been the trend for the past few years, the only group to see an increase in conceptions is women aged 40 and over, as prospective mothers delay childbearing until the latest possible point in their fertile lives.
So, it seems clear to me that social and economic factors are driving these trends. Women are putting off having families, as well as limiting their size, because either they feel they are not in a position to have children — for example because they don’t have a steady partner — or because they can’t provide for them.
Sarah was not being melodramatic when she said she couldn’t afford a third child. This child did not represent an inconvenience: a couple of missed skiing holidays, the extra expense of a larger house or additional school fees.
She and her husband could not afford that child, full stop. Childcare would simply wipe out her salary, her husband doesn’t earn enough to support them all and there wouldn’t be enough money to pay the mortgage.
They would lose their home — a modest two-bedroom property, in which the children already share a cramped bedroom. They would have to move away from the area where their children are happy in good state schools. She didn’t even know if her marriage would survive.
Let me put my cards on the table: I am not going to condemn any woman for having an abortion, whatever her reasons. I am 100 per cent pro-choice. But I also know that having an abortion is never an easy decision to make, no matter how much a woman knows it’s the best, or sometimes only, thing she can do.
In 2012, I had to abort a much-wanted baby because she had a very rare and serious chromosome condition. It was the right thing for me and my partner and, I believe, for our daughter, and I did it to spare her suffering — but it was still incredibly painful.
Sarah, too, says she will always live with the sadness of her abortion. Whatever pro-lifers suggest, choosing to terminate a pregnancy doesn’t mean you don’t care about the life you are ending, or feel it has no value. The abortion statistics belie a vast amount of sadness and regret.
As women, we seem to be further away from ‘having it all’ than we were 50 years ago, despite apparently having many more choices, so much more freedom. Yes, we have free access to contraception, and yes, the taboo around abortion has largely disappeared in our secular society, but we still aren’t living the lives we want to live.
Before the Pill, we couldn’t choose not to have a baby when we didn’t want one. Now, paradoxically, we are frequently having to choose not to have one, even if we’d like to have one.
Some will see the sad irony that this is happening at a time when thousands of other women are paying a fortune for IVF.
A large proportion of women in their mid-20s are still in full-time education, or doing unpaid internships, and they are often living in flat shares with several other people and little privacy, writes HILARY FREEMAN (stock image)
Although record numbers of women are working, and in spite of better employment laws, women still find it hard to get part-time work or jobs with flexible hours that fit in with school hours or childcare. Or they may find they are sidelined, demoted or cast aside after returning from maternity leave.
At the same time, childcare costs have spiralled so much that keeping just one child in a nursery during working hours can use up one person’s entire salary.
When my daughter was at nursery, for only four days a week, it cost me £1,300 a month. Factor in a second child, and childcare becomes a huge challenge for most families. It’s no wonder my daughter, and so many of her friends, remain only children.
My mother was married at 22 and gave birth to me at 26. By this age, she and my father — then a young university lecturer — already owned a three-bedroom, semi-detached house in a North London suburb.
When I was born, followed two years later by my brother, my mother was able to afford to give up work for a few years to look after us. If they’d had a ‘happy accident’ or a ‘little surprise’, I have no doubt I would have had another sibling. An abortion wouldn’t have been contemplated.
But how many couples can live on just one salary today? And what 26-year-old has their own semi-detached house? For that matter, how many twentysomething women are in a stable relationship, let alone coupled with men who would be happy to share parenting responsibilities?
We live in an age of Tinder, of ‘swiping right’ when you fancy someone, of endless possibilities. Men — and women — rarely feel pressurised into doing ‘the honourable thing’ in the event of an accidental pregnancy, and planning a hurried and hushed-up quickie wedding service.
No contraceptive method is 100 per cent effective. Accidents do happen, writes HILARY FREEMAN (stock image)
A large proportion of women in their mid-20s are still in full-time education, or doing unpaid internships, and they are often living in flat shares with several other people and little privacy.
Rents are astronomical, and few people can afford a mortgage until their mid-30s. All of these factors make having a baby a difficult, if not impossible proposition, for any sensible and ambitious young woman.
Few educated women now even think about the prospect of motherhood until their 30s. In the meantime, no contraceptive method is 100 per cent effective. Accidents do happen.
The pressures, although slightly different, are just as strong on older women. As Sarah said to me: ‘If I’d had the baby, we’d have been really short of money and of space. We’re only just about managing now.
‘We’d definitely have had to move house to another, cheaper area, making the kids leave behind their schools and friends.
‘We wouldn’t have been able to take them on any nice trips or on holiday. And my career is only just starting to recover from my pregnancies. I suppose that if abortion hadn’t been an option, we’d have had to make do, like people did in the past. But it is an option. So we took it.’
Nobody sets out to have an abortion.
But until there is cheaper childcare and cheaper housing, until the workplace is a more understanding environment for women with children, I fear this startling figure will keep going up.