BBC: Bans 'do not cut abortion rate'
Restricting the availability of legal abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, a major report suggests.
The Guttmacher Institute's survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted.It did note that improved access to contraception had cut the overall abortion rate over the last decade.
But unsafe abortions, primarily illegal, have remained almost static.
The survey of 197 countries carried out by the Guttmacher Institute - a pro-choice reproductive think tank - found there were 41.6m abortions in 2003, compared with 45.5 in 1995 - a drop which occurred despite population increases.
Nineteen countries had liberalised their abortion laws over the ten years studied, compared with tighter restrictions in just three.
But despite the general trend towards liberalisation, some 40% of the world's women live amid tight restrictions.
On some continents this is particularly pronounced: well over 90% of women in South America and Africa live in areas with strict abortion laws, proportions which barely have shifted in a decade.
Researchers also noted that while liberalisation was a key element in improving women's access to safer terminations, it was far from the only factor.
Even in countries where abortion is legal, availability and cost may prove major obstacles. In India for example, where terminations are legally allowed for a variety of reasons, some 6m take place outside the health service.
The costs of unsafe abortions, which can include inserting pouches containing arsenic to back street surgery, can be high: the healthcare bill to deal with conditions from sepsis to organ failure can be four times that what it costs to provide family planning services.
Every year, an estimated 70,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortion - leaving nearly a quarter of a million children without a mother - and 5m develop complications.
In the developed world, legal restrictions did not stop abortion but just meant it was "exported", with Irish women for instance simply travelling to Europe, according to Guttmacher's director, Dr Sharon Camp. In the developing world, it meant lives were put at risk.
"Too many women are maimed or killed each year because they lack legal abortion access," she said.
"The gains we've seen are modest in relation to what we can achieve. Investing in family planning is essential - far too many women lack access to contraception, putting them at risk."
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That title is so misleading. All the report says is that induced abortion rates are similar in countries where it is illegal and where it is legal. And when you control for poverty levels, it seems that making abortion illegal makes it less prevalent in any given country than it would be otherwise. Even the Guttmacher institute admits that making abortion illegal would reduce the number of abortions:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/1/gpr090102.html
"Criminalization would reduce, but by no means eliminate, abortion’s incidence..."
And that's just induced abortions. In countries like the US and Europe, the large majority of abortions are contraceptive abortions. Despite having more or less admitted that abortion and contraception are the same thing, the Guttmacher institute never includes contraceptive abortions in its statistics on the abortion rate.
That title is so misleading. All the report says is that induced abortion rates are similar in countries where it is illegal and where it is legal. And when you control for poverty levels, it seems that making abortion illegal makes it less prevalent in any given country than it would be otherwise. Even the Guttmacher institute admits that making abortion illegal would reduce the number of abortions:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/1/gpr090102.html
"Criminalization would reduce, but by no means eliminate, abortion’s incidence..."
And that's just induced abortions. In countries like the US and Europe, the large majority of abortions are contraceptive abortions. Despite having more or less admitted that abortion and contraception are the same thing, the Guttmacher institute never counts contraceptive abortions in its statistics on the total abortion rate.
sorry for the double post.
Yes, it was the double post we were worried about...