84 Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health

Finland’s abortion rate declined continuously from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s and increased slightly thereafter. This generally positive development concealed an impor-tant point, however: Among 25–29-year-old and 30–34-year-old women, the decreasing trend had already stopped in the late 1980s; in fact, when the generally downward abor-tion trend reversed slightly in the mid-1990s, abortion rates in these two age-groups had been increasing slowly for sev-eral years.1 It is noteworthy that in Finland, 65 % of all births in 1997–1998 occurred among 25–34-year-olds. Finnish abortion statistics indicate that half of all women who undergo an abortion already have one or more chil-dren.2 In addition, our preliminary calculations showed that in 9 % of all abortions (that is, around 900–950 each year), the pregnancy started within 12 months of the las