40-Something Women and Troubling Abortion Trends
A report from the United Kingdom of May 30 cites new abortion statistics revealing a disturbing trend among women over 40. The article uses the analogy of "Sex and the City," lifestyle choices to account for a sharp rise in abortion rates among older women in the U.K. A 30 percent increase among this demographic occurred during the last 10 years. The author of the article, Fiona MacRae says, "The head of Britain's biggest abortion provider said the surge could be explained by a 'Sex And The City'-generation of carefree single women and divorcees who take gambles with contraception-and then are surprised when they become pregnant." This 10 year trend places 40-plus women second only to teenage girls for having the highest abortion rates in Britain.
Abortion statistics from North America do not align exactly with the numbers from the U.K., and U.S. studies often group women who have abortions into a single age group, 15-44. Nevertheless, some current studies hint that there is a similar trend in the United States and Canada.
It may be necessary to parse the "Sex and the City" comparison just a little deeper for one to understand this inclination. Unmarried women are 6 times more likely that married women to have an abortion. Nearly half of all women are unmarried at any given time, and a high percentage of those women will never marry. Women often attain the greatest levels of career-related success and enjoyment as they reach their 40s and 50s. The prioritization of money and career over home and family may also contribute to the "Sex and the City" attitudes that were, just a few decades ago, seen only in co-eds and young, professional women.
The U.K. article cites another statistic indicating that higher abortion rates are not accidental, the result of contraceptive failures and surprise pregnancies, but are a lifestyle pattern in many older women. It states, "It is not clear from the statistics how many women had had an abortion before. But 44 percent of women aged 30-plus having terminations were on at least their second, 9 percent were on their third and 2 percent their fourth."
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