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Legalized abortion in South Australia: The first 7 years' experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Farhat Yusuf  and
Dora Briggs
Farhat Yusuf
Affiliation:
School of Economic and Financial Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney and School of Education, Flinders University, Adelaide.
Dora Briggs
Affiliation:
School of Economic and Financial Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney and School of Education, Flinders University, Adelaide.
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Summary

This paper examines the official abortion statistics for South Australia since the legalization of abortion in January 1970. The incidence of abortion is shown to be increasing steadily—in 1976 more than half of the extramarital pregnancies were terminated and the overall ratio of abortions to live births was nearly 1:6. Most abortion patients were single, young women. Comparison of fertility levels in South Australia with the rest of Australia shows that the fertility decline has been much more rapid in South Australia, suggesting that unless the South Australian women are more efficient users of contraception than other Australian women, a significant proportion of the fertility decline in South Australia has to be attributed to legalized abortion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1979 , pp. 179 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © 1979, Cambridge University Press

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