Home schooling, job loss, pandemic fear drove quadrupling of abortion calls
Job losses and home schooling pressure helped drive a quadrupling of calls for abortion counselling early in the pandemic, including three times more calls from women over 18 weeks pregnant.
Between March and July 2020, calls from women at or above 18 weeks’ gestation to the Victorian government-funded 1800MyOptions line increased 350 per cent, from 2.5 per cent of traffic to 8.8 per cent of calls, Monash University research revealed.
The finding came as an NHMRC research study showed women living in regional Australia were twice as likely as women in big cities to use the early pregnancy abortion pill MS-2 Step-2 Step, but one-third of women in the regions, and half in remote areas, have no access to it.
Professor Danielle Mazza, chair of general practice at Monash University and a member of both studies, said the jump in calls for abortion information showed the extreme pressure some women were under early in the pandemic.
“There’s been a lot of talk about the effects of the pandemic on the population in general; financial insecurity, mental health and some discussion about family violence. This research takes it an extra step to demonstrate the real impact on women who are having to grapple with additional burdens around their reproductive health,” she said.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/home-schooling-job-loss-pandemic-fear-drove-quadrupling-of-abortion-calls-20211020-p591rp.html
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I bet the feckin geniuses in Texas (and other states) didn't even consider this.