Abortion Issues

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 921507 23 6
Year 2010

Price: $20.95

  

Abortion Issues
Volume 312, Issues in Society

In Australia 1 in every 4 pregnancies is terminated, with 80,000 women undergoing abortion every year. International research shows that women will still seek abortion, even if it is illegal, and a number of surveys reveal a majority of Australians support the idea of safe and legal abortions. Abortion laws are different in each Australian state and territory, yet some of the legislation is vague and open to interpretation. This book explores the topic in two chapters: Abortion Options; and The Abortion Law Debate. What can be done to avoid unplanned pregnancy in the first place; if a woman finds herself in this situation, what are the options? Should Australia’s abortion laws be standardised? What are the pro-choice and pro-life arguments in relation to decriminalisation, availability of non-surgical abortion (RU486), late-term abortion, birth defects, the health of the expectant mother, the status of the fetus, and conscientious objections of health practitioners? Whose rights should prevail in this ethically complex debate?

Glossary; Fast Facts; Web Links; Index



fast facts
FAST FACTS from this volume
  • In 1990, an estimated 23% of all known pregnancies in Australia were terminated. This makes abortion one of the most common surgical procedures in the country, with around 80,000 women undergoing abortion every year. Our current ratio of one abortion in every four pregnancies is an improvement over the estimated one in three recorded in Australia in the 1930s.
  • Comparatively speaking, Australia’s abortion rate is reas-onably low by international standards. For instance, the United States of America has a 30% abortion rate, while countries such as the former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria have recorded abortion rates of over 50%.
  • Abortion laws are different in each Australian state and territory. Research has shown that the majority of Australians support the idea of safe and legal abortion. Yet some of the legislation remains vague and open to interpretation. Ambiguous laws can mean that public sector services may be limited, particularly in rural areas, and doctors may be less inclined to train in abortion techniques for fear of legal action.
  • Around one in three Australian women will undergo an abortion. The typical profile of a woman seeking abortion includes: aged in her 20s; single; childless; well-educated; and employed.
  • Studies show that between half and two thirds of all women presenting for abortion were using contraception at the time. Significantly, some women using birth control pills were not aware that back-up contraception, such as condoms, needed to be used in cases of vomiting or diarrhoea.
  • An increasing number of older women are having abortions, and most are working mothers who choose to focus on their career, current children and financial stability than have another baby, a recent Monash University study has found.
  • Increases in global contraceptive use have contributed to a decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies and, in turn, a decline in the number of abortions, which fell from an estimated 45.5 million procedures in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003.
  • The decline in worldwide abortion occurred alongside a global trend toward liberalising abortion laws. Nineteen countries have significantly reduced restrictions in their abortion laws since 1997, while only three countries have substantially increased legal restrictions. Despite these trends, 40% of the world’s women live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, virtually all of them in the developing world. In Africa, 92% of reproductive-age women live under highly restrictive abortion laws, and in Latin America, 97% do so. These proportions have not changed markedly over the past decade.
  • Unsafe abortion causes an estimated 70,000 deaths each year worldwide, and an additional five million women are treated annually for complications resulting from unsafe abortion. Approximately three million women who experience serious complications from unsafe procedures go untreated.
  • The number of induced abortions declined worldwide between 1995 and 2003, from nearly 46 million to approx-imately 42 million. About one in five pregnancies worldwide end in abortion.
  • For every 1,000 women of child-bearing age (15-44) world-wide, 29 were estimated to have had an induced abortion in 2003, compared with 35 in 1995.
  • The decline in abortion incidence was greater in developed countries, where nearly all abortions are safe and legal (from 39 to 26 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44), than in developing countries, where more than half are unsafe and illegal (from 34 to 29).
  • Most abortions occur in developing countries – 35 million annually, compared with seven million in developed countries – a disparity that largely reflects the relative population distribution.
  • Legal restrictions on abortion do not affect its incidence. For example, the abortion rate is 29 in Africa, where abortion is illegal in many circumstances in most countries, and it is 28 in Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds. The lowest rates in the world are in Western and Northern Europe, where abortion is accessible with few restrictions.
  • Worldwide, 48% of all induced abortions are unsafe. How-ever, in developed regions, nearly all abortions (92%) are safe, whereas in developing countries, more than half (55%) are unsafe.
  • More than 95% of abortions in Africa and Latin America are performed under unsafe circumstances, as are about 60% of abortions in Asia (excluding Eastern Asia).
  • The worldwide unsafe abortion rate was essentially un-changed between 1995 and 2003 (15 and 14 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, respectively). Because the overall abortion rate declined during this period, the proportion of all abortions that are unsafe increased from 44% to 47%.
  • Of the estimated 208 million pregnancies that occurred worldwide in 2008, 33 million (16%) resulted in unintended births and 41 million ended in induced abortions. (20%).
  • Of the 23 million pregnancies that occur in developed countries, more than 40% are unintended, and 28% end in induced abortion. Of the 185 million pregnancies that occur in developing countries, 40% are unintended, and 19% end in induced abortion.
  • It is estimated that there are almost 200,000 unplanned pregnancies in Australia every year. Unplanned pregnancies occur for a wide variety of individual, social and political reasons.
  • Public support for access to abortion in Australia has steadily increased in the past twenty years. The series of polls conducted by the Australian Election Study showed 38% of respondents in 1987 believed ‘women should be able to obtain an abortion readily, when they want one.’ In less than ten years support for “abortion on demand” had increased to 53% and by 2004 support had risen to 54.2%. Conversely, the percentage of respondents fundamentally opposed to abortion dropped from 6% to 4% in the same period.
  • Currently, 61% of the world’s people live in countries where induced abortion is permitted either for a wide range of reasons or without restriction as to reason. In contrast, 26% of all people reside in countries where abortion is generally prohibited.