High abortion rate in China due to poor use of contraception

OVER 13 million abortions a year are carried out in China, data from a government think tank has shown, and a major factor behind the number of unwanted pregnancies is that many young people don’t know how to use contraceptives properly.

This works out at more than 1,500 abortions an hour, a report by the State Family Planning Commission’s science and technology research institute has shown.

The figure is all the more remarkable when you consider China has implemented the One Child Policy of population control for more than three decades and a central plank of that policy is contraceptive use.

Six million abortions in China every year are carried out on women below the age of 25, most of whom are unmarried, which signals a high level of premarital sex in China. An online Chinese survey of 2,060 people aged above 18 in 2011, sponsored by condom-maker Durex, showed that 48 per cent of Chinese aged 19 to 24 had had sex.

Only 12 per cent of young people say they are familiar with how to use a condom, because of social taboos about sex, fear of embarrassing themselves in front of their peers, or a lack of basic physiological knowledge, Prof Wu Shangchun of the research institute told China Radio International.

“People are not sticking to scientifically proven methods, such as condoms. Less than 10 per cent said they use condoms every time,” said Prof Wu.

Some 20 per cent of young women who have premarital sex become pregnant and 90 per cent of them turn to abortion to end the unplanned pregnancy.

A survey by the China Population Communication Centre in 2009 and 2010 found that parents and teachers of 49 per cent of the teenagers had not talked to them about sexual development.