Abortion rates highest amongst 'immigrant' women
Abortion rates are highest among 'immigrant' women, a report claims
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Wednesday, 17, Sep 2008 09:20
New research has claimed that abortion rates are highest among 'immigrant' women and suggests that socioeconomic differences are to blame.
Doctors in Norway studied over 124,000 women undergoing pregnancy terminations at a hospital in Oslo, aged between 15 and 49, over a four-and-a-half year period.
It was found that women between the ages of 20 to 24 and 25 to 29 had higher rates of termination in all ethnic groups.
When comparing Norwegian women, referred to in the study as non-migrants, to labour migrants, defined as women from developing or eastern European countries working in Norway, and refugees, it was found that the later had higher termination rates.
For the labour migrants and refugees, 7.3 per cent and 10.8 per cent respectively underwent a termination of pregnancy, compared to six per cent within non-migrants.
Refugees were found to have the highest rates of termination among all the ethnic groups.
Within the non-migrant group, being married, having higher education and having one or less children were all factors which were shown to be associated with lower abortion rates.
The researchers therefore concluded that the higher rates of termination were directly linked to differences on women's socio-economic circumstances.
Dr Siri Vangen, from the National Resource Centre for Women's Health in Oslo, said "Research from Europe and the USA shows that immigrants from low-income countries have higher rates of pregnancy termination than the background population. Our new study conducted in Oslo confirmed this finding.
"The combination of low education and poor socioeconomic status seem to be important factors driving termination of pregnancy rates. This situation poses challenges for health providers in implementing interventions to reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancy among the immigrant populations.
"Immigrant women may need support to access counselling services for family planning. The counselling should be adapted to the individual women's knowledge about contraceptive methods and allow access to an acceptable method to suit each woman's situation."