By Lynne Stewart

TAYSIDE HAS retained the title of abortion capital of Scotland, with 16.7 terminations per 1000 women, according to latest figures released by NHS Scotland yesterday.

The worrying statistics reveal that NHS Tayside is failing to shrug off the unenviable tag, with 1286 abortions carried out last year on women aged between 15 and 44. Thirty-three of those were under 16, with the 20-24 age bracket accounting for 381 abortions.

In Tayside, 78.1% of the women who had a termination were single, while 13.8% were married and those widowed, divorced or separated accounted for 4%. The marital status of the remaining 4% was not known.

However, women from outlying areas can also have abortions in Tayside, which may affect the overall picture.

Lothian followed Tayside with a rate of 14.4 terminations per 1000 women, while the island boards (Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles) and Lanarkshire have the lowest rate with 7.2 and 8.4 respectively.

There were 12,217 abortions throughout Scotland with 11.5 abortions for every 1000 women.

Anne Brown, volunteer co-ordinator for Eighteen and Under, a youth support charity based in Dundee, said that a lack of sex education in schools does not help the matter.

“One of the concerns is the amount of women who are having unprotected sex and ignoring a number of health reasons,” she said. “We seem to have completely forgotten and overlooked HIV and AIDS. It (abortion figures) raises the issue of more sex education in all schools.

“Young people need to know where health advice is available. The Corner do a great job and they go round schools.”

Ms Brown continued, “How many of these young people who have had abortions are pressurised into having unprotected sex?

“Education needs to look at where condoms are available from and highlighting STDs. There is a great deal of responsibility and contraception is boys’ responsibility as well as girls’. Boys get STIs as well.

“How many of these abortions were the result of abuse?

“A termination is not taken lightly by a young person and it takes two doctors who have to agree to allow the girl to have a termination, and they carry that emotional trauma around with them for the rest of their lives.

“Young people are having sex regularly, younger and younger, and changing partners frequently.

“We have to applaud the fact that terminations are available. The young person is right to consider it as an option. We do not want to return to back street abortions.”

Claire McGraw, from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) Scotland, said the Government needed to rethink its strategy to reduce the number of abortions as it was not having the desired effect.

“The Government’s strategy for reducing the number of abortions is not working and the rates of sexually transmitted diseases amongst teenagers is rising. The whole strategy needs to tackle rising abortion rates.

“People from my organisation go into schools in Tayside and there have been visits to Morgan Academy, Grove Academy and Monifieth High School.

“We teach about the development of the unborn child and try and get them to realise the responsibility that comes with having children.

“Seeing the humanity of the unborn child makes them think twice about having irresponsible sex.”