A new study into global abortion rates released on Tuesday by the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute, a think-tank which studies sexual and reproductive health, showed safe abortion numbers falling worldwide.
Here are some of the main findings:
The rate of safe abortions dropped between 1995 and 2003 to 15 from 20 per 1,000 women aged 15-44, but unsafe abortions declined only slightly to 14 from 15 per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The overall rate fell to 29 from 35 per 1,000 women.
Globally around 70,000 women die each year from the effects of unsafe abortions, a figure that has barely changed in the last 10 years. An estimated 8 million women annually experience complications and need medical treatment, but only 5 million actually get that care.
Contraceptive use has increased in many parts of the world, particularly Latin America and Asia, contributing to a decline in the worldwide unintended pregnancy rate to 55 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 2008 from 69 per 1,000 in 1995.
A number of countries in which abortion was highly restricted in the 1990s have now liberalised their laws. Since 1997, 22 countries or administrative areas within countries have changed abortion laws. In 19 of those, restrictions were eased.
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