Abortion rates at a 7-year high

The number of abortions across Lanarkshire is at a seven-year high.

New government figures reveal that there were 1465 terminations in the NHS health board area.

The statistics were released by Information Services Division Scotland, a part of NHS Scotland which provides health service data used in planning.

And the report on the figures says: “There continues to be a strong association between deprivation and termination rates.

“While rates across the deprivation categories have generally been decreasing or remained relatively stable, since 2013 a widening gap has been evident between women from the most and least deprived areas.

“In 2017 the rate of terminations for women in the most deprived areas remained around twice as high as those from the least deprived areas.”

The statistics show that 15 females aged under 16 had terminations in Lanarkshire.

Among those aged 16 to 19, there were 218 terminations; 414 in those aged 20 to 24; 314 terminations among those aged 25 to 29; 267 among those aged 30 to 34; 183 among those aged 35 to 39; and 54 among women aged over 40.

In North Lanarkshire there were 811 terminations, up from 751 in 2016.

There were 654 terminations in South Lanarkshire – down from 673 in 2016.

Across Scotland, the number of terminations was at a five-year high in 2017.

There were 12,212 terminations of pregnancy during the year.

This was 106 more terminations than reported in 2016; an increase of just under one per cent.

Nationally, for the fourth successive year, the lowest termination rate was in the under-16 age group, down from 4.0 to 1.3 per 1000 females aged 13-15.

The rate is twice as high in deprived areas