International

Overview

Around 75% of the world’s population live in countries where abortion is legal. That leaves around 25% of the world’s population living in countries where it is difficult or impossible to access safe legal abortion.

Where abortion is legal

Where abortion is legal the law varies widely.

Some abortion laws are based on a medical model (such as UK abortion law). These laws define abortion as a solution to a medical problem i.e. abortion may be allowed in order to prevent the risk of physical or psychological damage to a pregnant woman.

Other laws (such as US law) defines the decision to have an abortion as a matter of rights. i.e. a woman has the right to make a private decision for herself about something that will affect her, without the interference of government.

Other elements of abortion law that vary widely are:

• Time limits for abortion
• Whether or not a woman has to pay for her abortion
• Whether she needs consent from a husband or parent (in the case of younger women)
• Whether she needs to justify her decision to more than one doctor
• Whether she needs to undertake compulsory counselling

In addition to the variations in law, many practical issues affect the ease or difficulty a woman might have accessing a safe, legal abortion:

• Cost of abortion
• Distance she may be required to travel
• The time she may have to wait for the procedure
• The number of doctors she may have to see.

Where abortion is illegal

Millions of abortions take place each year in countries where abortion is illegal. The main difference for women living in countries in which abortion is illegal compared to those where it is legal is that abortion is harder to access and likely to be unsafe.

Wealthy women living in urban areas might be able to access a safe abortion from a qualified doctor if they can afford to pay for it.

What happens when abortion is illegal?

Many women in countries where abortion is illegal resort to extremely dangerous methods to end their pregnancies.

So many women suffer serious injury from unsafe abortion that many countries where abortion is illegal actually provide special medical help for women who have had dangerous abortions (Kenya is an example of this).

Other countries accept that abortion is a problem that will not disappear but for political, religious or cultural reasons the governments of these countries are not prepared to legalise abortion.

In some countries a form of safe, early abortions are provided by community nurses and midwives under the label of ‘menstrual regulation’ (for example, Bangladesh uses this system of healthcare to reduce the number of women dying and injured as a result of unsafe abortion).

Each year around 70,000 women die as a result of illegal, unsafe abortions. Unsafe abortion is the cause of 15% of all deaths from maternal mortality (death caused by pregnancy or childbirth). Because abortion can be extremely safe when it is provided by trained professionals in an appropriate environment, it is considered to be the most easily preventable cause of maternal mortality.
 
Many health services in countries where abortion is illegal are campaigning to change the law to allow women to access safe, legal abortions and/or to ensure that help is available for those women who are injured from unsafe procedures. Some of these agencies face obstacles from abroad as well as from their own governments.

Read about United States overseas aid funding and the Global Gag Rule

For more information

For more information on different abortion laws around the world see Childbirth by Choice trust leaflet ‘Abortion in law, history and religion’. www.cbctrust.com/homepage.html

For statistics and more information on different abortion practices see Alan Guttmacher Institute ‘Sharing Responsibility: Women, Society and Abortion Worldwide (1999, special report)’ available at www.agi-usa.com.