When Catherine*, 38, a mum-of-two working for the NHS, fell pregnant earlier this year, she knew instantly that her family couldn’t afford another child, especially after the financial impact that the pandemic and ensuing cost of living crisis has had on the world.
Rising inflation, interest rates, electricity bills, food and childcare costs – coupled with working irregular shifts as an agency nurse and having recently taken maternity leave – meant that Catherine and her husband just weren’t in a position to have more children. She decided to have an abortion.
“We’re hoping to move to a bigger house at some point, and with inflation rates and the housing market and everything being affected, I just don’t know how feasible it will all be,” she tells GLAMOUR. “I feel okay about my decision – it was the right thing for my family.
“[While] I wasn’t heartbroken, it was a tough thing to do, and I feel for anyone else going through it.”
The most recent government statistics released last week show that the number of abortions in England and Wales increased by 17% between January and June 2022, compared to the same period in 2021. It’s likely that this figure is even higher this year. MSI reproductive choices, which offers abortions, saw a 29% increase in the number of people using their services in the first five months of 2023, compared with 2022. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) also said the number of patients it has treated has “continued to rise,” since 2022.
BPAS cited the cost of living crisis as a major factor in the increase in the number of people choosing to end their pregnancies. “Unplanned pregnancies are not always unwanted, and many of the women we see tell us that the circumstances they are in mean it is simply not the right time to start or expand a family,” said Clare Murphy, BPAS Chief Executive. “This is reflected in the [government figures], and while they only account for the first half of the year women’s need for our services has only continued to increase.!
Louise McCudden, Head of External Affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices’ UK, agrees that finances seem to be playing a larger role in people’s decision not to have children. “There's rarely one isolated reason why someone has an abortion, there's usually a combination of interconnected factors,” she tells GLAMOUR. “But we are hearing more and more stories from the people accessing our services about how their financial situation is playing a bigger part in that decision.”
It’s not just women seeking abortions, either. MSI UK saw a 54% increase in the number of men using their vasectomy services in the first five months of this year alone.
It makes sense: Inflation increased sharply following the pandemic, hitting a peak of 14% in November last year, food prices have risen by nearly 20% and energy bills have gone up by more than 50%. Not to mention childcare, the cost of which has become untenable for most. Research by Pregnant then Screwed found that 31% of new parents said that the cost of childcare has stopped them from having any more children.
This is something that impacted Catherine’s decision. “We don’t really have a great support network,” she says. “We don’t have parents to help us watch the kids, so we are doing it all on our own and paying for it all ourselves – we always have done and paid for it all ourselves.”
Even without a cost of living crisis, the cost of becoming a parent can’t be understated. “Pregnancy and parenthood impact your employment,” says McCudden. “Some people have jobs with maternity leave and better employment rights, but some people aren’t in that kind of work – they’re on zero hours contracts or are self-employed, and people in those kinds of [precarious] jobs are often on the lowest incomes, and are often women.” Even those who are able to go on maternity leave are likely to take a huge financial hit.
McCudden adds that the costs of looking after yourself and your health while pregnant and plans for the future – like buying a house, finding somewhere big enough – as well as the costs of raising a child in general all play a huge part in people deciding whether or not they want to have a child.
Bella*, 26, was living with her partner and his family when she found out she was pregnant. “I was initially in denial,” she tells GLAMOUR. Though she’d had a few pregnancy scares due to late periods, she’d never thought about what it would actually mean to her to get pregnant. “I have such a clear memory from when I was 16 saying to a best friend ‘I don't think I could ever have an abortion, it just seems too painful. I am going to be so careful when I start having sex,’” she recalls. “But the moment I saw the positive test results I felt like there was no other option.”
Living paycheck to paycheck in her boyfriend’s small family home, and having only just started her career, Bella felt as though she had no real choice. “The idea of maternity leave and knowing people are spending more on childcare than their mortgage at the moment, I couldn't let myself even consider going ahead with the pregnancy,” she says.
Bella says that while she still sometimes wonders “what if?”, she knows it was the right decision. “The cost-of-living crisis is getting worse and being financially ready to choose to become parents continues to feel further and further away,” she tells GLAMOUR.
While the increase in the number of people seeking abortion isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Murphy believes it is essential women are able to “make the decisions that are right for themselves and for their families.” This means more support from the government and better access to contraception.
In England alone, government spending on STI testing, contraception and treatment decreased by 17% in 2015/16 and 2020/21 as a result of government cuts to local councils. A lack of contraception services means women are less able to make the choices that are right for them, contributing to a rise in abortions. “We need contraception services that meet women's requirements, including better access to emergency contraception as a matter of urgency,” said Murphy. “It makes absolutely no sense to continue to compel women to undergo a clinically unnecessary consultation which acts as nothing but a barrier to her getting what she needs as quickly as possible.”
The government could also introduce economic measures to help everyone, not just those starting families, adds McCudden, “whether that's increasing people's wages, or cost of living support and policies that will help decrease the price of rents and mortgages.”
At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong number of abortions and an increase in abortions alone shouldn’t be treated as a negative thing. However, if the cost of living crisis and financial instability, coupled with a contraception crisis, is forcing people to make choices they wouldn’t have otherwise, it's clear that something needs to change.
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