“The helplessness that many pregnant women still experience from the public sector is scandalous” in Spain, according to María Torrego, president of the Red Madre Foundation, which has just presented its eighth Maternity Map.
This report has been prepared since 2015 with the objective of identifying and quantifying public spending specifically dedicated to caring for pregnant women regardless of their employment status, collecting and quantifying direct aid per child born during the year 2023, and knowing the policies that In this field they have been put into practice in different countries of the European Union.
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The study highlights that regional governments “spend 12 times more on abortion than on helping pregnant women who want to be mothers,” with the exception of the Community of Madrid.
In total, in 2023 the administrations offered just over 63 million euros of maternity aid, of which the Madrid regional administration contributes 60 and a half million.
This is equivalent to a national average of 149 euros per pregnant woman per year. Discounting the Community of Madrid, public support for motherhood is reduced to 6.5 euros per year.
Only in La Rioja is significant aid also offered, but the overall annual amount barely exceeds one million euros, which represents an average annual aid of 430 euros per pregnant woman.
At a lower administrative level, only 8 of the 41 provincial councils present in Spain offer some type of help. Among the 50 provincial capitals, only one in five includes some type of aid, with Madrid being the first, with just over 575,000 euros for a population of more than three million inhabitants.
The scarcity of aid contrasts with the desire of Spanish women for motherhood. According to the report, they at least want to have 2 children, but they only reach 1.1 on average, causing the number of births to decrease year after year, below the deaths.
Furthermore, according to the report, almost a quarter (23.90%) of the children conceived in Spain end their lives due to abortion. This percentage has been growing in recent years. In 2016, it was at 18.48%.
The number of abortions contrasts with the lack of support for motherhood, especially in the regions of Asturias and the Canary Islands, where more than 400 abortions are perpetrated for every 1,000 births.
Very similar figures are observed in Catalonia (388), the Balearic Islands (366) and even in the Community of Madrid (341). In Andalusia and the Basque Country the figure exceeds 300 abortions per 1,000 births.
Beyond the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta (23) and Melilla (16), the autonomous communities with the lowest abortion ratio per thousand births are Extremadura (198), Aragón (215), Galicia (218) and La Rioja (224). ).
Furthermore, compared to the rest of the countries that make up the European Union, Spain is ranked 19th in terms of the percentage of public spending with respect to the Gross Domestic Product (1.6%).
Social and work pressure makes motherhood difficult
The RedMadre Foundation report concludes that there is great social and work pressure that pushes women to consider abortion: “More than half of pregnant women declare that their work life changed when they announced their pregnancy.”
At the same time, “the employment rates of women with children are lower than the rates of women without children. In the case of men, the opposite happens,” they explain.
On the other hand, it is reported that “it is a challenge to get and keep a job as a mother.” In this sense, they point out that “the majority of women who had abortions were employed.”
Furthermore, among other difficulties, they indicate that “women with children have greater difficulty finding and maintaining employment,” that they request the majority of leave to care for their children, and that they are more affected by “insufficient conciliation and co-responsibility measures.” ”.
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.