Abortions in Spain fell for the first time in a decade in 2009

The number of surgical abortions carried out in Spain fell in 2009 for the first time in a decade, the ministry of health announced.

In 2009, there were 111 482 abortions in Spain, 3.7% less than in 2008. Since 1999, when the first statistical data first became available, the number of abortions has been rising year on year.

The Minister of Health Leire Pajín attributed the fall to the decision to allow pharmacies to dispense the emergency contraceptive pill without a prescription from the end of September 2010. She called this measure “extremely effective” adding, “It seems we are on the right track. Sexual education is important and it is useful to make contraceptive methods available.”

Ezequiel Pérez Campos, president of the Spanish Foundation for Contraception, however, told the BMJ that as the pill was given over the counter for just three months last year other factors could have contributed to the fall in demand for abortions.

Dr Pérez said that the main reason for the decline was a sharp drop in the number of immigrant women of childbearing age coming to Spain in recent years. The latest figures show that the largest decrease in the number of abortions occurred among immigrant women (a decrease of 9.2% compared with an increase of 2.7% in Spanish women).

“The highest percentage of abortions among these women is precisely in the first three years of residence in our country” before they have become acquainted with contraceptive practices in Spain, he explained.

The emergency contraceptive pill has been available under prescription in Spain since 2001, but was made available over the counter as part of the sexual and reproductive health and voluntary interruption of pregnancy law, approved in March 2010 (BMJ 2010;340:c1401).

The move caused controversy in Spain as pro-life groups and the Catholic Church consider the emergency contraceptive pill an abortive drug. Some doctors raised arguments against it and a few pharmacists refused to dispense it. Certain groups are also concerned that providing ready access to the pill stops people, especially young people, using other methods of contraception.

According to Dr Pérez sales of the emergency contraceptive pill increased by about 130% between September 2009 and September 2010. He says that around 700 000 doses were taken between January and the end of November 2010 with no major side effects.