Lack of abortion access worldwide encourages illegal and unregulated abortions
February 29, 2008 1:44:00
by Anna
Web Correspondent
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund
Reading Marcy Bloom's blog post "Need Abortion, Will Travel" on RH Reality Check had a disturbing effect on me. My first reaction was simple interest, since the notion of traveling to obtain abortion services never occurred to me, although it seems an obvious solution to laws illegalizing abortion within one's own country. Plenty of places, like Sweden and New York City, have no residence requirements for abortion, and it is only logical that the affluent take advantage of this option. But soon I found myself opening a Pandora's box of questions. At the heart of abortion tourism is the problem of a lack of access at home, and it is clear that international travel for the sake of obtaining an abortion is not a luxury that just anyone can afford. So what happens to the millions of people who can't?
Restricted abortion access is arguably the number one cause of unregulated, illegal abortions, dangerous procedures that all too often lead to fatal complications. Illustrating the difference in safety between legal and illegal, unregulated abortions, Planned Parenthood reported 2004 WHO statistics finding that legal abortion in the US leads to about one death per year, whereas illegal, unregulated abortion leads to fifty. The contrast is even more stark in developing countries, where illegal abortion is all the more frequent: Whereas legal abortion causes between four and six deaths a year in a developing country, unregulated abortion leads to anywhere from 100 to 1,000 deaths. Not only does this demonstrate how crucial safe and legal abortion services are to ensuring women's health, but it makes a troubling statement about access. Compare the 50 deaths per year caused by unregulated abortion in the United States to the hundreds any one developing nation. It's pretty clear who has the benefit of affordable access to health care and who does not.
Moving beyond the distinction between developed and developing countries, let's look at a specific region where abortion laws are generally restrictive: Latin America. In many of these countries abortion is permitted only in life-and-death situations. According to data collected from six Latin American countries, 95 percent of abortions are performed illegally and five to ten of any 1,000 women ages 15 to 49 are hospitalized every year for complications due to unsafe, illegal abortion.
We can even look to the pre-Roe v. Wade United States for a glimpse at the impact of laws barring abortion services. Abortion was illegal in the United States from the late 1800s until 1973, and in the 1960s one New York City study found that illegal abortions comprised 42 percent of the maternal mortality rate. And Roe v. Wade wasn't the end of women's struggle for safe abortion. The 1977 Hyde Amendment, which prevented Medicaid from funding abortions for poor women, is just one example of a law that has limited abortion access in the United States. Roe v. Wade itself, of course, has been up against harsh opposition ever since its implementation.
So on top of the philosophical and ethical reasoning that pro-choicers use to push for widely accessible and legalized abortion, we have a purely practical motive: Affordable access to legal abortion in one's home country has the potential to save thousands of lives. According to Planned Parenthood's report, things are moving in the right direction. Between 1995 and 2005 only five countries increased legal restrictions on abortion, while 15 liberalized abortion laws. But there remain dozens of countries where residents are in dire need of abortion services. The issue applies to the United States as well, not only in terms of protecting Roe v. Wade, but in terms of expanding availability of abortion services. 87 percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider within their limits, forcing people to travel long distances for safe abortions-a primary reason why illegal, unregulated abortion has never disappeared in the United States.
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