Terminating pregnancies

Conducting abortions
Providing abortion services
Inducing abortion

Description

Ending the life of a human foetus, either by miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) or by chemical or surgical intervention because the mother has decided that it would be inappropriate for her to give birth to the child.

Context

Abortion has been conducted for centuries and until recently carried considerable risk of injury or fatality.

Claim

Any woman should be free to make decisions about her own body, including the foetus inside her womb, and to use abortion as a method of contraception.

Contraceptives sometimes fail, especially when users are inexperienced. Young women need to feel free to ask for safe abortions and not wait for late abortions or medical care for complications. Early termination using vacuum aspiration is safe and cheap and can introduce women to family planning services. In Bangladesh, 95% of women attending clinics for early termination of pregnancy became users of contraceptives.