The times in which we live, a phrase that marks many reasons why couples have children at an increasingly late age, make many couples have to end up needing fertility treatments to have children.
This means that many in vitro fertilization treatments end up in which, as we know, several embryos are implanted to make the treatment end up being viable.
What happens is that many couples, who only want to have a child, end up getting a multiple pregnancy (twins or twins, triplets ...) and the consequence is that many of them, and I talk about couples in England, firm in his desire to have only one child, abort one or more embryos for "practical" or "economic" reasons.
I confess that when I read the news I was astonished, although this is quite logical because I am a fairly innocent person and until now I thought that if you get pregnant with several babies, you have them, the babies and you take care of them.
However, as we can see, it seems that for some parents, having all the babies that come is not an option and that is why more than 100 babies from multiple pregnancies were aborted in England last year.
Not all come from in vitro fertilization
I know that I have started the entry talking about in vitro fertilization, and the reason is that there has been an increase in “selective abortions”, in large part due to the increase in fertilizations that are being carried out with this technique: one in three aborted babies comes from a fertility treatment.
This leads us to see that the two remaining babies (two out of three) come from multiple pregnancies that come because nature has wanted it, data that gives to continue discussing the issue, if you want, of course.
What is the real increase in “selective abortions”
According to the British Ministry of Health, in 2006, 59 women aborted at least one of the babies. In 2010, the number of women increased to 85. We do not have any more data, but it would be interesting to know the total number of multiple abortions in England both in 2006 and in 2010, to find out whether this increase also exists proportionally.
Of the 85 women who underwent an abortion, 51 aborted a single baby (30 did so in 2006), the rest being abortions of more than one baby (triplets, for example, to end up giving birth to only one baby).
Of all the women who went to abort, 20 decided to abort a baby to go from triplets to twins, 9 decided to go from triplets to a single child, 3 couples who came with quadruplets stayed with twins and two pregnant mothers of quintuplets let live to two
In Spain there is no data on this practice, because we can know what abortions are based on living children, but not on the basis of those who are being managed (to date it is not notified, as I understand it). I don't know anyone who has done it, although yes I know someone who has explained to me what is being done (and here I can read).
I do not want to enter into a debate “abortion yes, abortion no”, although leaving my opinion, as I always do, I would be unable to make a decision about it. Once it is brewing I find myself unable to decide to abort a healthy baby (but this is my thing, of course). Let's say I can respect that other couples decide to abort healthy babies for whatever reason, but I don't share the decision. I I would spend my life thinking about how the other baby would have been (or the other babies) and how our life with him would have been (they).
