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Unsafe abortion is a significant cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in the world, especially in developing countries (95% of unsafe abortions take place in developing countries). Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Issues of discussion The abortion debate can be found in every level of politics and ethics. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... Issues of discussion Pro-life is a term representing a variety of perspectives and activist movements in bioethics. ... The controversial abortion-breast cancer (ABC) hypothesis posits a causal relationship between having an induced abortion and a higher risk of developing breast cancer in the future. ... A crisis pregnancy center is a non-profit organization, generally established by Christian pro-life supporters, as a means of encouraging pregnant women not to have abortions. ... The legalized abortion and crime effect is the highly controversial theory that the legalization of abortion in the United States, due to Roe v. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The issue of when a fetus can feel pain is a highly divisive and keenly debated one when considering the experience of a fetus during abortion. ... The term fetal rights can refer either to legal rights accorded to fetuses or to the moral rights that some people ascribe to them. ... Issues of discussion The genetics and abortion issue is an extension of the abortion debate and the disability rights movement. ... Late-term abortions are abortions which are performed during the late stages of pregnancy. ... A uniquely controversial issue, particularly in American politics, is abortion. ... Issues of discussion Post-abortion syndrome (PAS), post-traumatic abortion syndrome and abortion trauma syndrome, are terms primarily used by opponents of abortion[1][2] and a minority of health care professionals to describe a proposed diagnosis of psychopathological characteristics which may be observed in some women following a medically... Many jurisdictions have laws applying to minors and abortion. ... The paternal rights and abortion issue is an extension of both the abortion debate and the fathers rights movement. ... Societal attitudes towards abortion have varied throughout different historal periods and cultures. ... A self-induced abortion is an abortion that a pregnant woman causes herself to have without direct medical aid. ... Issues of discussion Sex-selective abortion is the targeted abortion of a fetus based upon its sex. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Issues of discussion Abortion-related violence is criminal violence committed against individuals and organizations that provide abortion. ... In medicine, epidemiology and actuarial science, the term morbidity can refer to the state of being diseased (from Latin morbidus: sick, unhealthy), the degree or severity of a disease, the prevalence of a disease: the total number of cases in a particular population at a particular point in time, the...

Overview

Every year, 40 million induced abortions occur globally (IPAS); and according to the 2000 estimates (WHO), 19 million unsafe abortions take place each year. According to WHO, approximately 68,000 women die annually as a result of complications of unsafe abortion; and between two million and seven million women each year survive unsafe abortion but sustain long-term damage or disease (incomplete abortion, infection (sepsis), haemorrhage, and injury to the internal organs, such as puncturing or tearing of the uterus).(IPAS) According to WHO statistics, one in ten pregnancies ends in an unsafe abortion. The risk rate for unsafe abortion is 1/270; according to other sources, unsafe abortion is responsible for one in eight maternal deaths.

In order to limit the number of deaths caused by unsafe abortion, WHO recommendations are priority for prevention of unplanned pregnancies, followed by improving the quality of abortion services and post-abortion care (when safe abortion services are not available, services to treat the complications of unsafe abortion can consume up to 50% of hospital resources).

• Unsafe abortion in the world
  • where abortion is illegal: Abortion law
  • where abortion is legal, but there is lack of provision of medical services

International status of abortion law  Legal on demand  Legal for rape, maternal life, health, mental health, socioecomic factors, and/or fetal defects  Legal for or illegal with exception for rape, maternal life, health, fetal defects, and/or mental health  Illegal with exception for rape, maternal life, health, and/or mental...

Back-alley abortion

Soviet poster circa 1925. Title translation: "Abortions performed by either trained or self-taught midwives not only maim the woman, they also often lead to death."

A back-alley abortion (back street abortion in the United Kingdom) is the common slang term for an illegal abortion in the United States. Image File history File links RussianAbortionPoster. ... Image File history File links RussianAbortionPoster. ... Soviet redirects here. ... Soviet Propaganda Poster during the World War II. The text reads Red Army Fighter, SAVE US! Chinese propaganda poster from during the Cultural Revolution. ... Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speakers dialect or language. ...

The wire coat hanger method was a popularly known back alley abortion procedure, although they were not the norm. In fact, Mary Calderone, former medical director of Planned Parenthood, said, in a 1960 printing of the American Journal of Public Health: Wire (top) and wooden (bottom) clothes hangers Clothes hanger with Clamps A clothes hanger, or coat hanger, is a device in the shape of: Human shoulders designed to facilitate the hanging of a coat, jacket, sweater, shirt, blouse or dress in a manner that prevents wrinkles, with a lower bar... This article is about Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ...

"Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physician. In 1957 there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind…Second, and even more important, the conference [on abortion sponsored by Planned Parenthood] estimated that 90 percent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians…Whatever trouble arises usually arises from self-induced abortions, which comprise approximately 8 percent, or with the very small percentage that go to some kind of non-medical abortionist…So remember…abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous, because it is being done well by physicians."

Herbal abortions (when done illegally) can also be described as back-alley abortions because they are not induced in a medical facility.^{[citation needed]} Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, c. ...

Controversy

The back-alley abortion phenomenon received public attention leading up to the legal proceedings of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in America. Since then, it has become a central argument on the part of some prominent legal abortion advocates. The publication in Ms. magazine of a photo of Gerri Santoro, who died of blood loss following a back-alley abortion, was used extensively to illustrate the dangers of illegal abortions. Holding Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to get an abortion violated her due process rights. ... Ms or Ms. ... Gerri and her sister Leona (source, family archives) Glamour shot of Gerri (source, family archives) Geraldine Gerri Santoro (née Twerdy) (August 16, 1935 - June 8, 1964) was an American woman who died of a back-alley abortion in 1964. ...

Bernard Nathanson, a pro-life doctor who, by his account, formerly performed thousands of abortions, has renounced statistics of women who allegedly died from back-alley abortions in the United States. He has asserted on numerous occasions that he and several other colleagues, who later became instrumental in abortion's legalization, had fabricated and disseminated many statistics about back-alley abortions for the purpose of leading the public to adhere to their justification for abortion.^[3] Bernard Nathanson (born 31 July 1926 in New York) is a medical doctor and pro-life activist from New York. ...

Notes

1. ^ Excludes Japan, Australia and New Zealand
2. ^ Primarily Eastern Europe
3. ^ Confession of an Ex-Abortionist by Dr. Bernard Nathanson

See also

• Abortion debate
• Reproductive rights
• Self-induced abortion

Issues of discussion The abortion debate can be found in every level of politics and ethics. ... Reproductive rights (also Procreative liberty) refers to human rights in areas of sexual reproduction, including the rights to reproduce (such as opposition to forced sterilization) as well as rights not to reproduce (such as support for access to birth control and abortion), the right to privacy, medical coverage, right to... A self-induced abortion is an abortion that a pregnant woman causes herself to have without direct medical aid. ...

External links

• "Pro-Life Nation" by Jack Hitt,New York Times, 9 April 2006. An article exploring the current situation in El Salvador.
• Becky Bell:A Mother's Story
• My Back Alley Abortion