"Unwanted pregnancies occur more due to failure in contraceptive methods than due to their non-use," declared José Cruz Quílez, president of the Spanish Contraception Society (SEC). Specifically, he refers to the use of condoms, the method most used by Spaniards. A third of them use it incorrectly: before ejaculating and the majority, only for vaginal penetration (it is a vital instrument to avoid sexually transmitted infections).
This statement comes the day after the figures for abortions in 2022 have been released. Voluntary interruptions of pregnancy (IVE) carried out in Spain last year amounted to 98,136, of which only 17% were carried out in public centers and Almost all of it was the sole decision of the woman. These are the data from the State Registry of Voluntary Interruptions of Pregnancy that the Ministry of Health has just published, which places the IVE rate in 2022 at 11.68 per 1,000 women between 15 and 44 years old.
The IVEs carried out in 2022 amounted to 98,136, of which only 17% were carried out in public centers and practically all of them were the sole decision of the woman. These are the data from the State Registry of Voluntary Interruptions of Pregnancy that the Ministry of Health has just published, which places the IVE rate in 2022 at 11.68 per 1,000 women between 15 and 44 years old.
The rate of abortions per 1,000 women counted this 2022 is the highest in a decade, since 2013, when it stood at 11.74 interventions, but the interpretation of the Ministry of Health is that the figure falls within the ordinary oscillations since so. According to the General Directorate of Public Health, the number “is in line with the fluctuations in rates between 10 and 12 per thousand women in recent years, and once the pandemic is over they adjust to the parameters of the last decade.” .
The 98,316 abortions were performed in 222 authorized centers: 82.7% were private (arranged, in which the woman does not pay anything for the intervention, or not). The proportion of abortions performed in centers of the public health network has risen two tenths in one year, but they are still a minority: only 17.02%. Four communities (Cantabria, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha and Murcia) did not practice any IVE in public centers.
One of the issues that both Cruz Quílez and José Gutiérrez Alés, president of the Spanish Contraception Foundation (FEC), have discussed at the press conference on the occasion of World Contraception Day is the need to provide classes of contraception once and for all. sexual-affective education, especially when the average age at which young women begin sexual relations is 16.2 years, four years less than their mothers who are now in their 50s.
The absence of this education, Gutiérrez points out, is causing adolescents to turn to porn. The increase in abortions also has to do with that educational source (few of the actors use condoms). "If we do not influence education, we will get worse, and next year it will not be an increase of 9 percent, but 20 percent," she indicated.
For Cruz, another cause of the increase in IVE is "growing hormonephobia", especially among young people. "The new generations are embracing everything that is more or less natural and shying away from hormonal treatments," she explains. However, she has warned that all these people who are moving away from hormonal treatments are not replacing them with others. "If we really don't want a certain method, we should embrace another, not leave everything in the hands of low-effective methods."
Both the SEC and the FEC insist that abortion has serious consequences for women. According to a study by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, women who voluntarily terminate their pregnancies tend to blame themselves, which makes them feel isolated and alone. When you suffer from it, the chances of suffering from depression and anxiety are multiplied by two and the risk of suicide is multiplied by four.
