Dying for Abortions

A global study looking at abortion rates worldwide shows that the rates of abortion are the same whether or not they're legal. So much for the illegal equals deterrence argument. The bad, bad news: where they're illegal, they're unsafe, and women are dying. How to decrease abortions? Access to contraception. Hardly mind-blowing. Hardly high-tech. But these kind of simple solutions that would save women's lives are impeded by the Catholic church and the zealous anti-abortion -- oh, I mean "pro-life" crusaders in the U.S.

According to The New York Times article,

The Bush administration’s multibillion-dollar campaign against H.I.V./AIDS in Africa has directed money to programs that promote abstinence before marriage, and to condoms only as a last resort. It has prohibited the use of American money to support overseas family planning groups that provide abortions or promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Worldwide, the annual number of abortions appeared to have declined between 1995, the last year such a broad study was conducted, and 2003, from an estimated 46 million to 42 million, the study concluded. The 1995 study, by the Guttmacher Institute, had far less data on countries where abortion was illegal.

Some countries, like South Africa, have undergone substantial transitions in abortion laws in that time. The procedure was made legal in South Africa in 1996, leading to a 90 percent decrease in mortality among women who had abortions, some studies have found.

Abortion is illegal in most of Africa, though. It is the second-leading cause of death among women admitted to hospitals in Ethiopia, its Health Ministry has said. It is the cause of 13 percent of maternal deaths at hospitals in Nigeria, recent studies have found.