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Criminal abortions are one of the top five causes of maternal deaths
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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The trend of increasing numbers of abortions being performed outside clinics by unskilled persons has been noted in a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), which was published in the journal The Lancet, the BBC reports.
The WHO study cited data up to and including 2008. In particular, it showed an increase in the number of clandestine abortions from 44 percent in 1995 to 49 percent in 2008. An editorial in The Lancet called these figures alarming.
The total number of abortions worldwide in 2008 increased by two million 200 thousand compared to 2003.
In developing countries, especially where there are strict legal restrictions on abortion, the majority of abortions are performed in poor conditions. In Africa, poor conditions account for 97 percent of all abortions.
In countries where abortion is illegal, data is collected through population surveys and official hospital statistics on complications and deaths associated with clandestine operations.
"Criminal abortion is one of the top five causes of maternal death," says Beverly Winikoff of Gynuity, a New York-based organization that works to make abortion legal and safer. In 2008, she estimates that one in seven to eight maternal deaths worldwide was due to illegal abortion.
Sexologist Kate Hawkins from the University of Sussex in the UK notes in connection with the publication of the WHO report: "legal or illegal, but if a woman is looking for a way to have an abortion, she will find it." According to Hawkins, in 2008, 86 percent of abortions took place in developing countries, and in the same year about half of all abortions performed in the world were clandestine.
In developed countries, the rate of terminated pregnancies fell from 36 percent in 1995 to 26 percent in 2008.
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