7 MARCH 1969, Page 26

Abortion boom

Sir: John Rowan Wilson (28 February) seems to have got himself a little confused by the abor- tion statistics, which may help to .account for the unbalanced tone of his article. He tells us that this year there will be `an increase of 32,000 abortions over the total for 1964.' This is non- sense. In 1964, 3,300 abortions were performed in National Health Service hospitals; this year there will be some 20,000—an increase of about half the number Dr Rowan Wilson suggests. We do not know how many private abortions were performed in 1964, because before the Abortion Act they did not have to be notified. Now they must be notified, and the number for this year is estimated at 15,000. This may not be a big in- crease on 1964; we have no means of knowing. Dr Rowan Wilson also omits, in this context, to point out that the number of NHS abortions had been rising steadily long before the Act came into effect. In 1958, there were 1,500. By 1966 there were 6,000. The Act simply speeded up a trend already long apparent.

Dr Rowan Wilson then repeats that Sunday newspaper chestnut about London becoming the 'abortion capital of the world'—a ringing phrase first popularised by Mr Norman St John- Stevas, mr,-in his hectic efforts to discredit re- form. It is sad to see it hashed up again in a serious journal, based as it is on gossip and prejudice. Not that there is not room for im- provement. If a handful of doctors have articles and photographs about themselves printed in mass-circul4tion foreign papers, this is almost certainly likely to result in an at least temporary rush of business from abroad. Perhaps Dr Rowan Wilson should be turning his guns on the General Medical Council, not on the Abortion Act.'

Dr Rowan Wilson talks about private nursing homes doing a 'brisk trade' in abortions as if this were a situation newly created by the Act. There has always been 'abortion on demand' for the woman with enough money to pay, and nearly all the nursing homes presently registered with the Department of Health, already existed long before and catered for the affluent middle classes. Despite Dr Rowan Wilson's 'abortion on demand' some twenty women have died'as a retell of criminal abortion since the Abortion Act came into effect. This should reassure him.'

Madeleine Simms Press Officer, Abortion Law Reform Associa- tion, 17 Dunstan Road, London NW11