SUNS  4358 Friday 22 January 1998

Washington, Jan 21 (IPS) -- Legal or not, women in both developed and developing nations are having abortions to end unwanted pregnancies and it is time the international community recognised it and protected these women, says a major U.S. population research and advocacy group.

In a new report released here Thursday, the New York-based Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) found that about 35 of every 1,000 women of childbearing age in the world have had induced abortions.

Despite variations in legal status and income levels in different countries, overall abortion rates are strikingly similar, said the 57-page report, a comprehensive analysis of what is known about
abortion worldwide.

Some 39 abortions per 1,000 women are performed in industrialised countries, while 34 are done for every 1,000 women in poor nations, the report, titled 'Sharing Responsibility: Women, Society and Abortion Worldwide,' found.

"Every country and community must find a way to deal with what is now an acknowledged reality," said Jeannie Rosoff, AGI's president. "With the best available information, individual countries and the international community can engage in a balanced discussion of how to both reduce the levels of unintended pregnancy that lead to abortion and deal with the sometimes deadly consequences of unsafe abortion for women in many of the world's poorest countries," the report stressed.

The report, issued ahead of a fifth-anniversary review of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Amsterdam next month, estimates that of the some 210 million pregnancies that occur each year, about 38 percent are unplanned, and 22 percent end in abortion.

The 1994 ICPD conference witnessed an unprecedented debate over the morality of abortion between the Vatican and other religiously conservative states on one hand, and, on the other, most industrialised nations and developing countries with strong family-planning policies.
The debate, which included the passionate involvement of non- governmental groups on both sides of the question, was the first time the issue had surfaced with force on the international agenda.

Abortion politics have also had a strong impact on U.S. politics and even international diplomacy. For two years, U.S. President Bill Clinton has failed to obtain almost one billion dollars from Congress to pay U.S. arrears to the United Nations because he has refused to go along with right-wing demands that he deny all U.S. aid money to overseas groups which perform abortions or lobby their governments to ease anti-abortion laws.

In addition to denying the world body desperately needed funds and jeopardising Washington's right to vote in the U.N. General Assembly, the impasse between the administration and the anti- abortion forces has forced Washington, traditionally the world's biggest bilateral donor to family-planning programmes, to reduce its population funding.

The report noted that, in developed countries, of the 28 million pregnancies occurring each year, almost half are unplanned, and 36 percent end in abortion. In developing countries, of the 182 million pregnancies each year, an estimated 36 percent are unplanned, and 20% are aborted.

"It is clear that women the world over go to great lengths to terminate an unplanned pregnancy," according to Rosoff. "It is not only our responsibility but our duty to respect that decision. We must do our best to ensure that abortion takes place only under safe conditions and to see that women have the means to prevent pregnancy in the first place."

Each year, about 46 million women have abortions, 20 million of which are illegal in the countries where they are performed. About 35 percent of the world's women live in countries where abortion is either illegal or is permitted only to save a woman's life or protect her health, according to the report. The result is that millions of women are forced to seek abortions through unauthorised and often unsafe procedures. Of the estimated 600,000 annual pregnancy-related deaths each year, almost 80% are due to complications of unsafe abortion.

But in developing regions, where abortion is often illegal or highly restricted, abortion mortality is hundreds of times higher than in developed countries. The rate is highest in Africa where around 680 women die for every 100,000 procedures. By contrast, the range in industrialised countries is 0.2 to 1.2 per 100,000. Women who seek abortions do so in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies,
according to the report, which noted that the reasons for not wanting a child are varied across cultures and stages in life. For example, in most developed countries, where early premarital intercourse is widespread, childbearing before marriage is likely to be considered unacceptable and undesirable.

In many poor countries, on the other hand, unwanted pregnancies often result from coercion against women, especially if they are young, poor, uneducated or low social status. In cases of civil war, such as recently in Bosnia and Rwanda, women have been raped by soldiers.

In addition, more and more women worldwide want smaller families and more time between births, according to a succession of surveys in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.

Abortion rates vary enormously by country and continents, according to the report. In Africa, where abortion is most difficult to obtain, only 12 percent of pregnancies are ended prematurely. In Eastern Europe, by contrast, almost 60% of pregnancies are aborted. In South Asia, the corresponding percentage is 17; in Latin America and the Caribbean, Western Europe, and North America, about 22; in East Asia, 30.

In reducing the rate of abortions, and particularly unsafe procedures, nations must give priority to introducing contraceptive services where they do not now exist and expanding and improving them where they are inadequate. The report stressed that, while contraception is the most effective means to reduce abortions, it "will not eliminate the need for abortion," because "all available contraceptive methods have some risk of failure..."