[Jyotishi]

The Top 5 Countries with the Highest Total Number of Abortions

Country
Number of Abortions
Abortion Rate

China
7,930,000
26.1 per 1,000 women

Russian Federation
2,287,300
68.4 per 1,000 women

Vietnam
1,520,000
83.3 per
1,000 women

United States
1,365,700
22.9 per 1,000 women

Ukraine
635,600
57.2 per 1,000 women

List Notes:

The number of induced abortions declined worldwide between 1995 and 2003, from nearly 46 million to approximately 42 million. About one in five pregnancies worldwide end in abortion. (a.)

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. Of the 33 countries with relatively complete counts, the numbers of legal abortions were greatest in the Russian Federation and the United States—more than one million each in 2003 (a.)

For every 1,000 women of childbearing age (15-44) worldwide, 29 were estimated to have had an induced abortion in 2003, compared with 35 in 1995. (a.)

The lowest abortion rate in the world is in Western Europe (12 per 1,000 women aged 15-44). The rate is 17 in Northern Europe and 21 in Northern America (Canada and the United States of America). Many of the most dramatic declines in abortion incidence between 1996 and 2003 occurred in Eastern Europe, which includes several countries of the former Soviet Union. These countries had some of the highest abortion rates in 1996, and despite significant declines, they continued to have the highest rates in 2003. The average annual decreases in abortion rate ranged from 4% in Hungary to 12% in Bulgaria, which represent net declines of 26% and 58%, respectively. The declines in this region represent a continuation of a trend that began in the early 1990s. (a.)

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. (a.)

Top 5 facts sources:

Sedgh, G., Singh, S., Bankole, A. Drescher, J. (2007). “Legal Abortion Worldwide: Incidence and Recent Trends”

Retrieved Jan, 2011 from: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3310607.html

Sources: Alan Guttmacher Institute report: Sharing Responsibility Women, Society and Abortion Worldwide.

http://www.top5ofanything.com/index.php?h=eafb416e

[Mrs. Don-o]

These figures you've cited here are interesting, and I thank you for posting this. In a few cases some questions can be raised.

• I wonder about the method of determining the number of illegal abortions. They are not reported by criminal abortionists, and usually cannot be detected subsequently unless the woman suffers infection, laceration, or other damage which would require medical intervention or repair surgery.

• Pregnancy data and legal abortion rates are not collected and reported the same way in all countries.For instance, the some EU reporting, teen pregnancy, abortion and birthrates are for all females under 20 years of age (including elementary school children), while ours in the USA are for adolescents ages 15 to 19. If you factor in prepubescent girls, you have a larger data pool and naturally you come up with a smaller percentage of pregnancies, abortions, and births.

• It is not quite accurate that in Western and Northern Europe, "abortion is accessible with few restrictions." Europe has tighter abortion laws than the USA does. It varies from country to country, but abortions are typically allowed throught the first 12 - 14 weeks ---late-trimester abortions are considered an emergency. Counseling and waiting periods are standard.

• One of the biggest reasons the Netherlands and other European countries have much lower abortion rates is that early abortions simply are not counted. If a young girl misses her monthly period and goes to a clinic, they don’t do a pregnancy test. They do a mini-D&C and call it a "menstrual extraction." If there is no documented pregnancy (no test to confirm), technically, it was not an abortion and is not reported as such.

I'm not alleging deliberate falsehood here: I'm saying all the figures require scrutiny because they do not represent "apples to apples" comparisons. What is needed is a more accurate evaluation of how pregnancy and abortion rates are reported from country to country.

• As I mentioned before, there's one area that needs heightened scrutiny: estimates made by abortion advocates of the prevalence of illegal abortions. Sometimes it turns out to be a guesstimated formula ("Take the number of reported post-abortion complications seen in emergency rooms, and multiply by 10 or 20 to get the overall illegal abortion rate" or "Double poll results to compensate for volunteer under-reporting." Even when an abortion advocate like the late Bernard Nathanson admits that his estimates of illegal abortions were simply fabricated, these fabrications can still be found in circulation.