Whether you believe abortion is a woman’s right or it is morally not acceptable, the fact remains that desperate women will take desperate actions if they feel forced to do so. Unsafe abortions may happen for a number of reasons. It could be because there are no sanitary offices within close proximity to where a woman lives. A lack of money may cause a woman to seek help from someone who doesn’t have the necessary skills to perform the procedure.
Statistics on Unsafe Abortions
1. It is estimated that over 220 million women are trying to avoid pregnancy in the developing world, but have no access to a modern form of contraception.
2. The number of women who die each year from unsafe abortions: 47,000.
3. 21.6 million women experience an unsafe abortion worldwide each year.
4. 6 out of every 7 unsafe abortions will occur in a developing nation.
5. Unsafe abortions results in almost 13% of the total cases of maternal deaths that occur annually.
6. Of the 46 million abortions that are induced every year, about 19 million of them are performed in conditions that are listed as unsafe.
7. The death rate from a legal abortion in the United States is less than 1 in 100,000 procedures performed.
8. 99% of the deaths that occur during an unsafe abortion happen in developing countries.
9. 40% of the unsafe abortions that occur are to women who are under the age of 25.
10. The number of unsafe abortions that occur to women who are under the age of 20: 1 in 7.
11. In African, 25% of the unsafe abortions that happen annually among teenagers between 15-19 years of age, the highest proportion of this demographic in the world.
12. In developed countries, only 300 deaths per year happen because of unsafe conditions.
13. The most common reason for maternal death during an unsafe abortion is because of severe bleeding.
14. 1 out of 5 pregnancy related deaths are to do indirect causes, such as heart disease or an HIV infection.
15. The chance of a woman dying in sub-Saharan African because of being pregnant: 1 in 16.
16. In North American, the risks of maternal death are 1 in 2,566.
17. 1 woman dies every 7 minutes because of an unsafe abortion.
18. The percentage of worldwide pregnancies that occur in an unplanned way: 33%.
19. 1 out of every 4 women lives in a country that has a highly restrictive set of laws regarding abortion.
20. Between 10 and 50% of unsafe abortion cases need medical attention, but delay care because of consequences due to an illegal abortion.
21. 40% of unplanned pregnancies in the United States end in abortion, which is twice the overall abortion rate.
22. Blacks and African Americans are the most likely to get an abortion, with 69% of pregnancies ending in this way.
23. About 2% of women aged 15-44 have an abortion.
24. 47% of women who get one abortion will have at least one more procedure completed during their lifetime.
Facts from World Health Organization
According to the World Health Organization, an unsafe abortion happens any time an unskilled practitioner performs the procedure or it is attempted in an environment that is not conducive to the minimal medical standards of safe. Only one of these two factors need to be present for an abortion to be considered unsafe. A practicing physician without training or experience can perform an unsafe abortion just as someone without any medical knowledge can.
Women tend to have abortions for similar reasons, no matter what country or culture they happen to be a part of. It tends to follow the same reasons why women choose to take birth control or practice modern contraception. Unsafe abortions tend to happen more often when birth control or contraception is not widely available and unfortunately this is causing a lot of women to die needlessly.
The legality of abortion has no direct correlation on the rates of abortion that a country experiences. The highest abortion rates in the world today tend to be in locations where the practice is widely restricted, but have few resources to access contraceptive services. In comparison, some of the lowest rates of abortion happen where the practice is legal and accessible, but where modern contraceptives can easily be found.
Important Facts About Unsafe Abortions
Most women say that they aren’t pressured into having an abortion. More women, in fact, say they are pressured to bring a pregnancy to full term by their family and friends than anything else.
One of the common arguments against abortion is that women will regret the decision later on in life. On the contrary, most women actually experience a sense of relief immediately following an abortion. More stress is felt by a woman before an abortion than after, partly because of the fact that so many occur in unsafe conditions. Some women in hindsight might make a different decision, but most women would say that they had wished they hadn’t become pregnant in the first place.
It isn’t just the undeveloped world that is struggling with contraception. More than half of women who have an abortion in the developed world were taking contraceptive measures when they became pregnant. The problem is with consistency. Only 3 out of 4 women who take a birth control pill do so according to the instructions they are given. Fewer than half of men use a condom in the way that it is intended during intercourse.
Then there’s the question about pregnancies that occur because of rape or unwanted sexual contact. For who had an abortion and didn’t use a contraceptive during sex, only 1% of them said that they were forced to have sex. The simple fact is that if all women were using abortion as their primary form of birth control, the average sexually active woman would have 2 or 3 abortions every year. That’s why in places where abortion is pretty much the only alternative, more needs to be done to help women so they can have healthy, happy lives too.