Experts blame misinformation, lower contraceptive use for abortion rise in Netherlands

The number of abortions in the Netherlands has increased by 10 percent for two consecutive years. There has been no official research into the cause, but experts partly blame online misinformation about contraceptives and the resulting decline in their use, NU.nl reports.

“We see that the use of contraception in the Netherlands is decreasing,” Ingvil de Haan, an expert on reproductive health at sexual health knowledge center Rutgers, told NU.nl. One in five women under the age of 25 don’t use any contraception at all, De Haan said. For women between the ages of 25 and 31, that is 41 percent. “That could, of course, be because people want a child, but it is striking.”

The number of women between 18 and 49 who take the pill has decreased from 30 percent in 2017 to 24 percent in 2023. Condom use is also down. According to De Haan, this is a “plausible reason for the increase in unwanted pregnancies.”

The Sexual Health Monitor showed that one in three women who don’t take the pill avoid it because they don’t want to take hormones. Lotte Gerritsen, an associate professor of clinical psychology at Utrecht University, partly attributes this to misinformation and horror stories on social media. “Hormones are not bad or unhealthy,” she told the newspaper. “We see that people generally feel much better using the contraceptive pill. They have a better mood, can deal with stress better, and suffer less from fluctuations that you normally have during your period.”

There are, of course, some women who don’t respond well to hormones. “Discuss this with your GP. The pill is a one-size-fits-all product, which is actually strange because everyone’s hormone balance is different. But there are many different pills available.”

Social media influencers also promote other methods for preventing pregnancy, like cycle tracking and pulling out. According to De Haan, abortion clinics are also seeing more women using these alternative methods. “These so-called fertile days methods are very unreliable if you do not apply them properly,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with using a cycle tracking app in itself, it can provide a lot of insight into your cycle. But they are not completely reliable, especially if you do not apply them consistently or if you have too little knowledge.”

Soa AIDS Nederland links the decline in contraception to the disappearance of information campaigns. Until 2011, the GGDs actively promoted condom use, but that stopped due to a lack of funds and now condom use is on the decline and sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies are on the rise.

The government says it considers prevention important, but at the same time, it has cut those budgets again, a spokesperson for the HIV organization told the newspaper. “A financial boost is needed to prevent unwanted pregnancies.”