70,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions

William Atkins
Wednesday, 14 October 2009 18:38

Science - Health

Sharon Camp, president and chief executive officer of the Guttmacher Institute, states, “The progress made during the past decade in increasing contraceptive use and reducing the need for abortion is fundamentally good news—the world is moving in the right direction.”

Ms. Camp adds, “And yet, we still have two widely disparate realities. In almost all developed countries, abortion is safe and legal. But in much of the developing world, abortion remains highly restricted, and unsafe abortion is common and continues to damage women’s health and threaten their survival.”

Camp says that she hopes the rate of abortions around the world drops from its current rate of 29 per 1,000 women to around 10 per 1,000 women.

She states, "Women will continue to seek abortion whether it is safe or not as long as the unmet need for contraception remains high. With sufficient political will, we can ensure that no woman has to die in order to end a pregnancy she neither wanted nor planned for." [Reuters: "Unsafe abortions kill 70,000 a year, harm millions"]

Read the full Guttmacher Institute report at “Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress” (pdf file).

According to its Learn more about our work website, "The Guttmacher Institute advances sexual and reproductive health worldwide through an interrelated program of social science research, public education and policy analysis."

"For nearly four decades, Guttmacher has demonstrated that scientific evidence — when reliably collected and analyzed, compellingly presented and systematically disseminated — can make a difference in policies, programs and medical practice."

The Guttmacher Institute has offices in New York City and Washington D.C.