Induced abortion: incidence and trends worldwide from 1995 to 2008

Worldwide, 49% of abortions were unsafe in 2008, up from 44% in 1995

The proportion of pregnancies that end in abortion was lower in developing regions than in developed regions, partly because birth rates were higher in developing regions.

Our findings show that the substantial decline in the abortion rate observed between 1995 and 2003 has tapered off, and the proportion of abortions that are unsafe has increased since 1995, such that nearly half of all abortions worldwide were unsafe in 2008.

We found that the proportion of women living under liberal abortion laws is inversely associated with the abortion rate in the subregions of the world. Other studies have found that abortion incidence is inversely associated with the level of contraceptive use, especially where fertility rates are holding steady, and there is a positive correlation between unmet need for contraception and abortion levels. The unmet need for modern contraception is lower in subregions dominated by liberal abortion laws than in those dominated by restrictive laws, and this might help explain the observed inverse association between liberal laws and abortion incidence. Global levels of unmet need and contraceptive use seem to have stalled in the past decade: the percent of married women with unmet need for contraception fell by 0·2 percentage points per year in 1990—2000, but essentially did not change in 2000—2009. Family planning services seem to not be keeping up with the increasing demand driven by the increasingly prevalent desire for small families and for better control of the timing of births.