AUCKLAND Forty-three per cent of women who had an abortion in 2006 were using contraception, the Abortion Supervisory Committees 2007 report reveals. Of the 17,934 abortions carried out in 2006, 7703 were on women who were using contraception at the time.

Right to Lifes Ken Orr said those statistics have been fairly consistent since reporting began in 1978.

Right to Life believes that these important statistics prove that contraception has a high and unacceptable failure rate, Mr Orr said.

Of the 7703 contracepting women who became pregnant, 2399 were using oral contraceptives and 4785 26.7 per cent of the total number of abortions that year were using condoms.

This clearly demonstrates that there are serious flaws in the current approach to sex education in New Zealand, which is contraceptive based, said Brendan Malone of Family Life International.

Mr Orr said the ASC report exposes the lie promoted by the Government and Family Planning [Association] that we need more use of condoms.

The Government laments our nations unacceptably high abortion statistics and mistakenly believes that we need more comprehensive sex education in school and an increased use of condoms, he said.

Mr Orr said his society would continue to vigorously lobby the Government to introduce abstinence programmes in schools.

Mr Malone said the number of condom failures could be a lot higher than the statistics revealed.
This doesn't include women who experience condom failures and keep their babies, women who experience condom failures which are masked by other contraceptives or women who experience condom failures leading to sexual disease, he said.