A New Zealand medical doctor recently said she believes the cause of the high abortion rate in the country is a lack of choice in contraception.

Speaking on a television programme, Dr. Pippa Mackay said: “It’s partly a cultural issue and partly an issue around a lack of education and information on contraception and I’m sure it’s also a lack of good, safe, available contraception that is side-affect free.”

She added: “There’s no doubt there are more contraception options available in other countries than there are here. We tend to have just a few, and some of them are pretty old fashioned.”

Unfortunately, according to Dr. Mackay, the authorities in New Zealand are reluctant to fund anything that’s new, preferring to use tried and tested methods. However with a growing abortion rate, she feels this view needs to change.

She told the interviewer that a year’s supply of one of the newer contraception options now available – NuvaRing – was sold out in just three weeks.

She continued: “The NuvaRing is an oestrogen/progesterone ring, like a little plastic ring of a diaphragm almost, that is inserted in a woman’s vagina and it lasts up to 35 days. A woman can deal with it herself [and] it’s a very good contraceptive success.”

What angers Dr. Mackay the most though is the reluctance of both the authorities to fund new developments and businesses to persuade them to do so; all the more so when as she says, there are a variety of modern contraception options readily available overseas.

Dr. Mackay said: “The trouble with the older pills is that they have side effects often or people don’t like them, and if they don’t like their contraception they’ll stop it. They often don’t pick up on anything else.”