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THE CAMPAIGNING has begun by both sides in relation to the upcoming referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment. Part of this campaigning involves postering. The Save the 8th campaign, which is opposed to repealing the Eighth Amendment, has a poster which says:
In England 1 in 5 babies are aborted.
Let’s take a look at this claim. The Save the 8th claim comes from 2015 UK statistics – in order to be up-to-date, we have taken the 2016 UK statistics, which vary very little from 2015.
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the UK Department of Health statistics, in 2016 in England and Wales there were:
This means there were, according to these statistics, 889,789 recorded pregnancies in total (if we add together live births + stillbirths + abortions), of which 190,406 or 21.39% ended in abortion.
However, the above statistics do not include the rate of miscarriage.
The HSE says that an estimated 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. But it also says:
…the figure could be significantly higher because many miscarriages are thought to occur before a woman realises that she is pregnant.
The majority of miscarriages happen during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Conception rates
Let’s look at conception figures. The ONS says that in 2016, in England and Wales there were an estimated 862,785 conceptions to women of all ages, compared with 876,934 in 2015, which was a decrease of 1.6%.
Again, these statistics, like the pregnancy statistics above, don’t include miscarriage.
Conception statistics do not include conceptions resulting in miscarriages or illegal abortions.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says that it “uses conception data as a proxy for pregnancies”, although miscarriages are not included.
It says that the conception statistics are estimated for women usually resident in England and Wales and are “based on birth registrations and abortion records”.
If we look at abortion as a percentage of these conceptions in England and Wales, the ONS statistics show that the percentage of conceptions leading to legal abortion in 2016 across all ages groups is 21.7%.
Regarding the ages of women who had these abortions, it says:
Women aged 30 to 34 years had the lowest percentage of conceptions leading to legal abortion (14.2%) in 2016, whereas women aged under 16 years had the highest percentage (61.5%).
The ONS explains that it cannot include “conceptions resulting in miscarriages or illegal abortions” – unlike births and legal abortions, there are no official records to give a definitive figure on these.
However, it says that, similar to the HSE: “NHS Choices estimate that one in six confirmed pregnancies will end in miscarriage”.
What are the ways that abortion numbers are measured?
As US data website Five Thirty Eight explains, there are three ways of measuring abortion:
Regarding the rate of abortions, the number of abortions per 1,000 live births is usually calculated as the number of abortions multiplied by 1,000, divided by the total mid-year population of women aged between 15 and 44 (as Measure Evaluation outlines). On this, Five Thirty Eight says:
Because many reproductive-age women aren’t getting pregnant, the rate alone can’t tell you how likely a pregnant woman is to have an abortion.
So the abortion ratio can give another view of things here. This is what the Save the 8th poster looks at. To get this ratio, you divide the abortion rate by the pregnancy rate, though as Five Thirty Eight says:
This can be a challenge, because to calculate the pregnancy rate, researchers need the raw number of pregnancies, which no [US] government agency collects directly. In fact, a certain percentage of pregnancies are virtually impossible to count, because they end in miscarriage
As we’ve seen above, the pregnancy and conception rates in England and Wales in 2016 don’t include the number of miscarriages.
Explains Five Thirty Eight, in order to estimate the total number of pregnancies, researchers “add the number of abortions and the number of live births, using birth-certificate data”.
“They then use the estimated number of pregnancies per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 — the pregnancy rate — and the abortion rate to calculate the abortion ratio.”
If you have the abortion ratio and pregnancy rate, you can then see:
What is the abortion rate for England and Wales in 2016?
The UK’s Department of Health says that the age-standardised abortion rate that year was 16.0 per 1,000 resident women aged 15-44.
This is the same rate as 2015 and 9.1% lower than 10 years previously, in 2006 (17.6).
The data also shows us that:
Conclusion
It must be noted that the Save the 8th poster says that ’1 in 5 babies’ is aborted.
In a previous FactCheck, a Save the 8th campaign spokesperson told TheJournal.ie that “everyone describes their preborn child as a baby”. The Save the 8th campaign uses the term ‘baby’ to describe a pregnancy from conception. (See also the statement by Save the 8th representative Dr Eimear Thornton at a recent Save the 8th launch that the point of gestation makes for a “living human being”.)
This definition as utilised by Save the 8th of the term ‘baby’ from the point of gestation or conception should therefore include such pregnancies that unfortunately end in miscarriage at any point.
The 1 in 5 figure does not include these miscarriages – it is calculated only on the legal abortion and births records. As the NHS and HSE points out, there is an estimate of the number of miscarriages, but because it is only an estimate, they can’t technically add it to the official figures. Therefore, FactCheck would not be in a position to proffer a definitive figure – but neither can any other entity.
(These entities would include the Save the 8th billboards but also Dr Peter Boylan’s assertion in an interview with Hot Press magazine that “the true figure is about one in ten”. This is also unproven.)
Verdict: Unproven, which means that “the evidence available is insufficient to support or refute the claim”.
TheJournal.ie’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.
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sad times…
Well it’s just aswell your man in the picture had the app open!
There was a Pokemon on the roof of his bejaysusing car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Very sad that people have to chase a cartoon for entertainment. It’s bad enough walking into these zombies on Facebook and texting without this crap. Not far away from a population of hunched over pale and blank faced people now!
Bejaysusing! What a word!
Thankfully, I’m unaware how this game works. Is it GPS reliant? If so, the creators could include software which would mean the game freezes when the user is travelling over 10km per hour.
Have you not got the memo? Corporations have no social responsibility apparently.
Why should they be responsible for stupid people ? I thought humans supposed to be the superior species …not.
It does for its predecessor Ingress, where you can go about 20kmh before the gps lags behind. The developers don’t encourage driving, or using any faster transport than a bicycle for these sort of games. They also say at the start of the app to keep an eye out of your surroundings, which sadly too many eejits aren’t doing and giving the games a bad rap.
People play as car passengers or on trains/buses etc.
Telling people interferes with the natural selection whereby the stupid people kill themselves off and only the clever people continue the species. Unfortunately, with so much health and safety about we are top heavy with dopes !
Is that to improve Gardai chances of catching ‘em all?
Some adult needs to be warned not to play this while driving, says it all really!!!
A friend was passing through town during the week, called in to see me, had two of his sons with him.
I answered the door, the two teenagers shot past me, checked out every room in the house, out to the garden the garage, hopped over the wall, came back 20 minutes later after checking the neighbourhood.
For Pokemon monsters.
I wanted to give the two of them a good slap…and I know by the look on my mate’s face that he would have been happy if I had…but I didn’t.
It’s becoming a stupid obsession.
Someone has your house completely mapped out so….talk about a data collecting tool and when you download the app you are giving them complete access to everything on your phone, including your emails.
It’s almost like they were in an alternate reality while there.
You know…as if teenagers aren’t annoying enough already.
I remember you been equally freaked and posting online here in the 70′s about the Hula Hoop – and look at it now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WJNFYumRQ0
LOL, this part of the comment – “the crowds were in awe as his hoop swung , flipped and flopped. Johnny , your the man !!! ” under that video is gold
Chewy I wish I could give you a thousand thumbs up
Steady on.
I was driving through the Phoenix park and caught a Michael D Higgins and I wasn’t even using my phone !!!! Cool or what.
These days I’m more surprised when I see someone not using their phone while driving.
Miriam
Total rubbish. Reading click bait is bad enough but posting it very sad.
god help us all when Mario Car Go is released, it will be chaos on the roads
Cant wait for gta go
The missus issued me a similar warning about extramarital sex, apparently ‘gotta catch em all’ is not a good reply when asked about my STD status.
Solid Advice
People have been warned not to vote FG but they still do it.
Wish they would lead by example
Ahh Pokemon go… Aiding natural selection since July 2016 …
If a law was passed to make phone manufacturers, service providers, app developers etc… concurrently liable for accidents caused by people on their phone while driving – I guarantee there would be a workable solution to stop people using them within a month.
If an idiot walks into traffic, off a cliff, into a tree it’s because they are an idiot not because the game made them do it. They make their own decisions. I’ve no time for this game it’s basically train spotting for the modern generation but the game didn’t make people stupid and plenty of screen shots show a warning telling players to pay attention.
This is the biggest load of shiteeeeee I’ve ever seen. Society become even more idiotic, and more dumbed down. Sad state of affairs. Pfffffffff
Yeah remeber when we all used to go into a big building and talk to an imaginary being so that it wouldnt send us to an imaginary place when we died
At least all the virgins are getting some sun on their greasy spotty necks. Might dry them out a bit.
Seriously, are people that stupid that they need to be “reminded” no to play a game on their phones while driving?
No shiz sherlock!
My tax paying money won’t be used on those shower of wasters chasing virtual characters shame they don’t care about the real Irish wildlife
So we should go into the contryside and throw balls at foxs and badgers ?
Obviously not it went straight over your head dermot
But isn’t that speed that kills?
I think not looking where you are going does too..
@Free – I really need to start using #sarcasm so that people will cop on.
Ah here
have your say