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Abortion Argumentative Essay: Definitive Guide

Academic writing

Abortion remains a debatable issue even today, especially in countries like the USA, where a controversial ban was upheld in 13 states at the point this article was written. That’s why an essay on abortion has become one of the most popular tasks in schools, colleges, and universities. When writing this kind of essay, students learn to express their opinion, find and draw arguments and examples, and conduct research.

It’s very easy to speculate on topics like this. However, this makes it harder to find credible and peer-reviewed information on the topic that isn’t merely someone’s opinion. If you were assigned this kind of academic task, do not lose heart. In this article, we will provide you with all the tips and tricks for writing about abortion.

Where to begin?

Conversations about abortion are always emotional. Complex stories, difficult decisions, bitter moments, and terrible diagnoses make this topic hard to cover. Some young people may be shocked by this assignment, while others would be happy to express their opinion on the matter.

One way or another, this topic doesn't leave anyone indifferent. However, it shouldn’t have an effect on the way you approach the research and writing process. What should you remember when working on an argumentative essay about abortion?

Don’t let your emotions take over. As this is an academic paper, you have to stay impartial and operate with facts. The topic is indeed sore and burning, causing thousands of scandals on the Internet, but you are writing it for school, not a Quora thread.
Try to balance your opinions. There are always two sides to one story, even if the story is so fragile. You need to present an issue from different angles. This is what your tutors seek to teach you.
Be tolerant and mind your language. It is very important not to hurt anybody with the choice of words in your essay. So make sure you avoid any possible rough words. It is important to respect people with polar opinions, especially when it comes to academic writing.
Use facts, not claims. Your essay cannot be based solely on your personal ideas – your conclusions should be derived from facts. Roe v. Wade case, WHO or Mayo Clinic information, and CDC are some of the sources you can rely on.

Speaking of Outline

An argumentative essay on abortion outline is a must-have even for experienced writers. In general, each essay, irrespective of its kind or topic, has a strict outline. It may be brief or extended, but the major parts are always the same:

Introduction. This is a relatively short paragraph that starts with a hook and presents the background information on the topic. It should end with a thesis statement telling your reader what your main goal or idea is.
Body. This section usually consists of 2-4 paragraphs. Each one has its own structure: main argument + facts to support it + small conclusion and transition into the next paragraph.
Conclusion. In this part, your task is to summarize all your thoughts and come to a general conclusive idea. You may have to restate some info from the body and your thesis statement and add a couple of conclusive statements without introducing new facts.

Why is it important to create an outline?

You will structure your ideas. We bet you’ve got lots on your mind. Writing them down and seeing how one can flow logically into the other will help you create a consistent paper. Naturally, you will have to abandon some of the ideas if they don’t fit the overall narrative you’re building.
You can get some inspiration. While creating your outline, which usually consists of some brief ideas, you can come up with many more to research. Some will add to your current ones or replace them with better options.
You will find the most suitable sources. Argumentative essay writing requires you to use solid facts and trustworthy arguments built on them. When the topic is as controversial as abortion, these arguments should be taken from up-to-date, reliable sources. With an outline, you will see if you have enough to back up your ideas.
You will write your text as professionals do. Most expert writers start with outlines to write the text faster and make it generally better. As you will have your ideas structured, the general flow of thoughts will be clear. And, of course, it will influence your overall grade positively.

Abortion Essay Introduction

The introduction is perhaps the most important part of the whole essay. In this relatively small part, you will have to present the issue under consideration and state your opinion on it. Here is a typical introduction outline:

The first sentence is a hook grabbing readers' attention.
A few sentences that go after elaborate on the hook. They give your readers some background and explain your research.
The last sentence is a thesis statement showing the key idea you are building your text around.

Before writing an abortion essay intro, first thing first, you will need to define your position. If you are in favor of this procedure, what exactly made you think so? If you are an opponent of abortion, determine how to argue your position. In both cases, you may research the point of view in medicine, history, ethics, and other fields.

When writing an introduction, remember:

Never repeat your title. First of all, it looks too obvious; secondly, it may be boring for your reader right from the start. Your first sentence should be a well-crafted hook. The topic of abortion worries many people, so it’s your chance to catch your audience’s attention with some facts or shocking figures.
Do not make it too long. Your task here is to engage your audience and let them know what they are about to learn. The rest of the information will be disclosed in the main part. Nobody likes long introductions, so keep it short but informative.
Pay due attention to the thesis statement. This is the central sentence of your introduction. A thesis statement in your abortion intro paragraph should show that you have a well-supported position and are ready to argue it. Therefore, it has to be strong and convey your idea as clearly as possible. We advise you to make several options for the thesis statement and choose the strongest one.

Hooks for an Abortion Essay

Writing a hook is a good way to catch the attention of your audience, as this is usually the first sentence in an essay. How to start an essay about abortion? You can begin with some shocking fact, question, statistics, or even a quote. However, always make sure that this piece is taken from a trusted resource.

Here are some examples of hooks you can use in your paper:

As of July 1, 2022, 13 states banned abortion, depriving millions of women of control of their bodies.
According to WHO, 125,000 abortions take place every day worldwide.
Is abortion a woman’s right or a crime?
Since 1994, more than 40 countries have liberalized their abortion laws.
Around 48% of all abortions are unsafe, and 8% of them lead to women’s death.
The right to an abortion is one of the reproductive and basic rights of a woman.
Abortion is as old as the world itself – women have resorted to this method since ancient times.
Only 60% of women in the world live in countries where pregnancy termination is allowed.

Body Paragraphs: Pros and Cons of Abortion

The body is the biggest part of your paper. Here, you have a chance to make your voice concerning the abortion issue heard. Not sure where to start? Facts about abortion pros and cons should give you a basic understanding of which direction to move in.

First things first, let’s review some brief tips for you on how to write the best essay body if you have already made up your mind.

Make a draft

It’s always a good idea to have a rough draft of your writing. Follow the outline and don’t bother with the word choice, grammar, or sentence structure much at first. You can polish it all later, as the initial draft will not likely be your final. You may see some omissions in your arguments, lack of factual basis, or repetitiveness that can be eliminated in the next versions.

Trust only reliable sources

This part of an essay includes loads of factual information, and you should be very careful with it. Otherwise, your paper may look unprofessional and cost you precious points. Never rely on sources like Wikipedia or tabloids – they lack veracity and preciseness.

Edit rigorously

It’s best to do it the next day after you finish writing so that you can spot even the smallest mistakes. Remember, this is the most important part of your paper, so it has to be flawless. You can also use editing tools like Grammarly.

Determine your weak points

Since you are writing an argumentative essay, your ideas should be backed up by strong facts so that you sound convincing. Sometimes it happens that one argument looks weaker than the other. Your task is to find it and strengthen it with more or better facts.

Add an opposing view

Sometimes, it’s not enough to present only one side of the discussion. Showing one of the common views from the opposing side might actually help you strengthen your main idea. Besides, making an attempt at refuting it with alternative facts can show your teacher or professor that you’ve researched and analyzed all viewpoints, not just the one you stand by.

If you have chosen a side but are struggling to find the arguments for or against it, we have complied abortion pro and cons list for you. You can use both sets if you are writing an abortion summary essay covering all the stances.

Why Should Abortion Be Legal

If you stick to the opinion that abortion is just a medical procedure, which should be a basic health care need for each woman, you will definitely want to write the pros of abortion essay. Here is some important information and a list of pros about abortion for you to use:

Since the fetus is a set of cells – not an individual, it’s up to a pregnant woman to make a decision concerning her body. Only she can decide whether she wants to keep the pregnancy or have an abortion. The abortion ban is a violation of a woman’s right to have control over her own body.
The fact that women and girls do not have access to effective contraception and safe abortion services has serious consequences for their own health and the health of their families.
The criminalization of abortion usually leads to an increase in the number of clandestine abortions. Many years ago, fetuses were disposed of with improvised means, which included knitting needles and half-straightened metal hangers. 13% of women’s deaths are the result of unsafe abortions.
Many women live in a difficult financial situation and cannot support their children financially. Having access to safe abortion takes this burden off their shoulders. This will also not decrease their quality of life as the birth and childcare would.
In countries where abortion is prohibited, there is a phenomenon of abortion tourism to other countries where it can be done without obstacles. Giving access to this procedure can make the lives of women much easier.
Women should not put their lives or health in danger because of the laws that were adopted by other people.
Girls and women who do not have proper sex education may not understand pregnancy as a concept or determine that they are pregnant early on. Instead of educating them and giving them a choice, an abortion ban forces them to become mothers and expects them to be fit parents despite not knowing much about reproduction.
There are women who have genetic disorders or severe mental health issues that will affect their children if they're born. Giving them an option to terminate ensures that there won't be a child with a low quality of life and that the woman will not have to suffer through pregnancy, birth, and raising a child with her condition.
Being pro-choice is about the freedom to make decisions about your body so that women who are for termination can do it safely, and those who are against it can choose not to do it. It is an inclusive option that caters to everyone.
Women and girls who were raped or abused by their partner, caregiver, or stranger and chose to terminate the pregnancy can now be imprisoned for longer than their abusers. This implies that the system values the life of a fetus with no or primitive brain function over the life of a living woman.
People who lived in times when artificial termination of pregnancy was scarcely available remember clandestine abortions and how traumatic they were, not only for the physical but also for the mental health of women. Indeed, traditionally, in many countries, large families were a norm. However, the times have changed, and supervised abortion is a safe and accessible procedure these days. A ban on abortion will simply push humanity away from the achievements of the civilized world.

Types of abortion

There are 2 main types of abortions that can be performed at different pregnancy stages and for different reasons:

Medical abortion. It is performed by taking a specially prescribed pill. It does not require any special manipulations and can even be done at home (however, after a doctor’s visit and under supervision). It is considered very safe and is usually done during the very first weeks of pregnancy.
Surgical abortion. This is a medical operation that is done with the help of a suction tube. It then removes the fetus and any related material. Anesthesia is used for this procedure, and therefore, it can only be done in a hospital. The maximum time allowed for surgical abortion is determined in each country specifically.

Cases when abortion is needed

Center for Reproductive Rights singles out the following situations when abortion is required:

When there is a risk to the life or physical/mental health of a pregnant woman.
When a pregnant woman has social or economic reasons for it.
Upon the woman's request.
If a pregnant woman is mentally or cognitively disabled.
In case of rape and/or incest.
If there were congenital anomalies detected in the fetus.

Countries and their abortion laws

Countries where abortion is legalized in any case: Australia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.
Countries where abortion is completely prohibited: Angola, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Oman, Paraguay, Palau, Jamaica, Laos, Haiti, Honduras, Andorra, Aruba, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone, Senegal, etc.
Countries where abortion is allowed for medical reasons: Afghanistan, Israel, Argentina, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ghana, Israel, Morocco, Mexico, Bahamas, Central African Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Algeria, Monaco, Pakistan, Poland, etc.
Countries where abortion is allowed for both medical and socioeconomic reasons: England, India, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Finland, Taiwan, Zambia, Iceland, Fiji, Cyprus, Barbados, Belize, etc.

Why Abortion Should Be Banned

Essays against abortions are popular in educational institutions since we all know that many people – many minds. So if you don’t want to support this procedure in your essay, here are some facts that may help you to argument why abortion is wrong:

Abortion at an early age is especially dangerous because a young woman with an unstable hormonal system may no longer be able to have children throughout her life. Termination of pregnancy disrupts the hormonal development of the body.
Health complications caused by abortion can occur many years after the procedure. Even if a woman feels fine in the short run, the situation may change in the future.
Abortion clearly has a negative effect on reproductive function. Artificial dilation of the cervix during an abortion leads to weak uterus tonus, which can cause a miscarriage during the next pregnancy.
Evidence shows that surgical termination of pregnancy significantly increases the risk of breast cancer.
In December 1996, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics concluded that a fetus is considered a human being on the 14th day after conception.

You are free to use each of these arguments for essays against abortions. Remember that each claim should not be supported by emotions but by facts, figures, and so on.

Health complications after abortion

One way or another, abortion is extremely stressful for a woman’s body. Apart from that, it can even lead to various health problems in the future. You can also cover them in your cons of an abortion essay:

Continuation of pregnancy. If the dose of the drug is calculated by the doctor in the wrong way, the pregnancy will progress.
Uterine bleeding, which requires immediate surgical intervention.
Severe nausea or even vomiting occurs as a result of a sharp change in the hormonal background.
Severe stomach pain. Medical abortion causes miscarriage and, as a result, strong contractions of the uterus.
High blood pressure and allergic reactions to medicines.
Depression or other mental problems after a difficult procedure.

Abortion Essay Conclusion

After you have finished working on the previous sections of your paper, you will have to end it with a strong conclusion. The last impression is no less important than the first one. Here is how you can make it perfect in your conclusion paragraph on abortion:

It should be concise. The conclusion cannot be as long as your essay body and should not add anything that cannot be derived from the main section. Reiterate the key ideas, combine some of them, and end the paragraph with something for the readers to think about.
It cannot repeat already stated information. Restate your thesis statement in completely other words and summarize your main points. Do not repeat anything word for word – rephrase and shorten the information instead.
It should include a call to action or a cliffhanger. Writing experts believe that a rhetorical question works really great for an argumentative essay. Another good strategy is to leave your readers with some curious ideas to ponder upon.

Abortion Facts for Essay

Abortion is a topic that concerns most modern women. Thousands of books, research papers, and articles on abortion are written across the world. Even though pregnancy termination has become much safer and less stigmatized with time, it still worries millions. What can you cover in your paper so that it can really stand out among others? You may want to add some shocking abortion statistics and facts:

40-50 million abortions are done in the world every year (approximately 125,000 per day).
According to UN statistics, women have 25 million unsafe abortions each year. Most of them (97%) are performed in the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 14% of them are especially unsafe because they are done by people without any medical knowledge.
Since 2017, the United States has shown the highest abortion rate in the last 30 years.
The biggest number of abortion procedures happen in the countries where they are officially banned. The lowest rate is demonstrated in the countries with high income and free access to contraception.
Women in low-income regions are three times more susceptible to unplanned pregnancies than those in developed countries.
In Argentina, more than 38,000 women face dreadful health consequences after unsafe abortions.
The highest teen abortion rates in the world are seen in 3 countries: England, Wales, and Sweden.
Only 31% of teenagers decide to terminate their pregnancy. However, the rate of early pregnancies is getting lower each year.
Approximately 13 million children are born to mothers under the age of 20 each year.
5% of women of reproductive age live in countries where abortions are prohibited.

We hope that this abortion information was useful for you, and you can use some of these facts for your own argumentative essay. If you find some additional facts, make sure that they are not manipulative and are taken from official medical resources.

Abortion Essay Topics

Do you feel like you are lost in the abundance of information? Don’t know what topic to choose among the thousands available online? Check our short list of the best abortion argumentative essay topics:

Why should abortion be legalized essay
Abortion: a murder or a basic human right?
Why we should all support abortion rights
Is the abortion ban in the US a good initiative?
The moral aspect of teen abortions
Can the abortion ban solve birth control problems?
Should all countries allow abortion?
What consequences can abortion have in the long run?
Is denying abortion sexist?
Why is abortion a human right?
Are there any ethical implications of abortion?
Do you consider abortion a crime?
Should women face charges for terminating a pregnancy?

Want to come up with your own? Here is how to create good titles for abortion essays:

Write down the first associations. It can be something that swirls around in your head and comes to the surface when you think about the topic. These won’t necessarily be well-written headlines, but each word or phrase can be the first link in the chain of ideas that leads you to the best option.
Irony and puns are not always a good idea. Especially when it comes to such difficult topics as abortion. Therefore, in your efforts to be original, remain sensitive to the issue you want to discuss.
Never make a quote as your headline. First, a wordy quote makes the headline long. Secondly, readers do not understand whose words are given in the headline. Therefore, it may confuse them right from the start. If you have found a great quote, you can use it as your hook, but don’t forget to mention its author.
Try to briefly summarize what is said in the essay. What is the focus of your paper? If the essence of your argumentative essay can be reduced to one sentence, it can be used as a title, paraphrased, or shortened.
Write your title after you have finished your text. Before you just start writing, you might not yet have a catchy phrase in mind to use as a title. Don’t let it keep you from working on your essay – it might come along as you write.

Abortion Essay Example

We know that it is always easier to learn from a good example. For this reason, our writing experts have complied a detailed abortion essay outline for you. For your convenience, we have created two options with different opinions.

Topic: Why should abortion be legal?

Introduction – hook + thesis statement + short background information

Essay hook: More than 59% of women in the world do not have access to safe abortions, which leads to dreading health consequences or even death.

Thesis statement: Since banning abortions does not decrease their rates but only makes them unsafe, it is not logical to ban abortions.

Body – each paragraph should be devoted to one argument

Argument 1: Woman’s body – women’s rules. + example: basic human rights.

Argument 2: Banning abortion will only lead to more women’s death. + example: cases of Polish women.

Argument 3: Only women should decide on abortion. + example: many abortion laws are made by male politicians who lack knowledge and first-hand experience in pregnancies.

Conclusion – restated thesis statement + generalized conclusive statements + cliffhanger

Restated thesis: The abortion ban makes pregnancy terminations unsafe without decreasing the number of abortions, making it dangerous for women.

Cliffhanger: After all, who are we to decide a woman’s fate?

Topic: Why should abortion be banned?

Essay hook: Each year, over 40 million new babies are never born because their mothers decide to have an abortion.

Thesis statement: Abortions on request should be banned because we cannot decide for the baby whether it should live or die.

Argument 1: A fetus is considered a person almost as soon as it is conceived. Killing it should be regarded as murder. + example: Abortion bans in countries such as Poland, Egypt, etc.

Argument 2: Interrupting a baby’s life is morally wrong. + example: The Bible, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics decision in 1996, etc.

Argument 3: Abortion may put the reproductive health of a woman at risk. + example: negative consequences of abortion.

Restated thesis: Women should not be allowed to have abortions without serious reason because a baby’s life is as priceless as their own.

Cliffhanger: Why is killing an adult considered a crime while killing an unborn baby is not?

Argumentative essay on pros and cons of abortion

Examples of Essays on Abortion

There are many great abortion essays examples on the Web. You can easily find an argumentative essay on abortion in pdf and save it as an example. Many students and scholars upload their pieces to specialized websites so that others can read them and continue the discussion in their own texts.

In a free argumentative essay on abortion, you can look at the structure of the paper, choice of the arguments, depth of research, and so on. Reading scientific papers on abortion or essays of famous activists is also a good idea. Here are the works of famous authors discussing abortion.

A Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson

Published in 1971, this essay by an American philosopher considers the moral permissibility of abortion. It is considered the most debated and famous essay on this topic, and it’s definitely worth reading no matter what your stance is.

Abortion and Infanticide by Michael Tooley

It was written in 1972 by an American philosopher known for his work in the field of metaphysics. In this essay, the author considers whether fetuses and infants have the same rights. Even though this work is quite complex, it presents some really interesting ideas on the matter.

Some Biological Insights into Abortion by Garret Hardin

This article by American ecologist Garret Hardin, who had focused on the issue of overpopulation during his scholarly activities, presents some insights into abortion from a scientific point of view. He also touches on non-biological issues, such as moral and economic. This essay will be of great interest to those who support the pro-choice stance.

H4 Hidden in Plain View: An Overview of Abortion in Rural Illinois and Around the Globe by Heather McIlvaine-Newsad

In this study, McIlvaine-Newsad has researched the phenomenon of abortion since prehistoric times. She also finds an obvious link between the rate of abortions and the specifics of each individual country. Overall, this scientific work published in 2014 is extremely interesting and useful for those who want to base their essay on factual information.

H4 Reproduction, Politics, and John Irving’s The Cider House Rules: Women’s Rights or “Fetal Rights”? by Helena Wahlström

In her article of 2013, Wahlström considers John Irving’s novel The Cider House Rules published in 1985 and is regarded as a revolutionary work for that time, as it acknowledges abortion mostly as a political problem. This article will be a great option for those who want to investigate the roots of the abortion debate.

FAQs On Abortion Argumentative Essay

Is abortion immoral?

This question is impossible to answer correctly because each person independently determines their own moral framework. One group of people will say that abortion is a woman’s right because only she has power over her body and can make decisions about it. Another group will argue that the embryo is also a person and has the right to birth and life.

In general, the attitude towards abortion is determined based on the political and religious views of each person. Religious people generally believe that abortion is immoral because it is murder, while secular people see it as a normal medical procedure. For example, in the US, the ban on abortion was introduced in red states where the vast majority have conservative views, while blue liberal states do not support this law. Overall, it’s up to a person to decide whether they consider abortion immoral based on their own values and beliefs.

Is abortion legal?

The answer to this question depends on the country in which you live. There are countries in which pregnancy termination is a common medical procedure and is performed at the woman's request. There are also states in which there must be a serious reason for abortion: medical, social, or economic. Finally, there are nations in which abortion is prohibited and criminalized. For example, in Jamaica, a woman can get life imprisonment for abortion, while in Kenya, a medical worker who volunteers to perform an abortion can be imprisoned for up to 14 years.

Is abortion safe?

In general, modern medicine has reached such a level that abortion has become a common (albeit difficult from various points of view) medical procedure. There are several types of abortion, as well as many medical devices and means that ensure the maximum safety of the pregnancy termination. Like all other medical procedures, abortion can have various consequences and complications.

Abortions – whether safe or not - exist in all countries of the world. The thing is that more than half of them are dangerous because women have them in unsuitable conditions and without professional help. Only universal access to abortion in all parts of the world can make it absolutely safe. In such a case, it will be performed only after a thorough assessment and under the control of a medical professional who can mitigate the potential risks.

How safe is abortion?

If we do not talk about the ethical side of the issue related to abortion, it still has some risks. In fact, any medical procedure has them to a greater or lesser extent.

The effectiveness of the safe method in a medical setting is 80-99%. An illegal abortion (for example, the one without special indications after 12 weeks) can lead to a patient’s death, and the person who performed it will be criminally liable in this case.

Doctors do not have universal advice for all pregnant women on whether it is worth making this decision or not. However, many of them still tend to believe that any contraception - even one that may have negative side effects - is better than abortion. That’s why spreading awareness on means of contraception and free access to it is vital.

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Persuasive Essay Guide

Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Crafting a Convincing Persuasive Essay About Abortion

How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?

Abortion is a controversial topic, with people having differing points of view and opinions on the matter. There are those who oppose abortion, while some people endorse pro-choice arguments.

It is also an emotionally charged subject, so you need to be extra careful when crafting your persuasive essay .

Before you start writing your persuasive essay, you need to understand the following steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Position

The first step to writing a persuasive essay on abortion is to decide your position. Do you support the practice or are you against it? You need to make sure that you have a clear opinion before you begin writing.

Once you have decided, research and find evidence that supports your position. This will help strengthen your argument.

Check out the video below to get more insights into this topic:

Step 2: Choose Your Audience

The next step is to decide who your audience will be. Will you write for pro-life or pro-choice individuals? Or both?

Knowing who you are writing for will guide your writing and help you include the most relevant facts and information.

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Step 3: Define Your Argument

Now that you have chosen your position and audience, it is time to craft your argument.

Start by defining what you believe and why, making sure to use evidence to support your claims. You also need to consider the opposing arguments and come up with counter arguments. This helps make your essay more balanced and convincing.

Step 4: Format Your Essay

Once you have the argument ready, it is time to craft your persuasive essay. Follow a standard format for the essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Make sure that each paragraph is organized and flows smoothly. Use clear and concise language, getting straight to the point.

Step 5: Proofread and Edit

The last step in writing your persuasive essay is to make sure that you proofread and edit it carefully. Look for spelling, grammar, punctuation, or factual errors and correct them. This will help make your essay more professional and convincing.

These are the steps you need to follow when writing a persuasive essay on abortion. It is a good idea to read some examples before you start so you can know how they should be written.

Continue reading to find helpful examples.

Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples

To help you get started, here are some example persuasive essays on abortion that may be useful for your own paper.

Short Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Persuasive Essay About No To Abortion

What Is Abortion? - Essay Example

Persuasive Speech on Abortion

Legal Abortion Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Persuasive Essay about legalizing abortion

You can also read m ore persuasive essay examples to imp rove your persuasive skills.

Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents both sides of an argument. These essays rely heavily on logic and evidence.

Here are some examples of argumentative essay with introduction, body and conclusion that you can use as a reference in writing your own argumentative essay.

Abortion Persuasive Essay Introduction

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Conclusion

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Pdf

Argumentative Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Argumentative Essay About Abortion - Introduction

Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics

If you are looking for some topics to write your persuasive essay on abortion, here are some examples:

Should abortion be legal in the United States?
Is it ethical to perform abortions, considering its pros and cons?
What should be done to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions?
Is there a connection between abortion and psychological trauma?
What are the ethical implications of abortion on demand?
How has the debate over abortion changed over time?
Should there be legal restrictions on late-term abortions?
Does gender play a role in how people view abortion rights?
Is it possible to reduce poverty and unwanted pregnancies through better sex education?
How is the anti-abortion point of view affected by religious beliefs and values?

These are just some of the potential topics that you can use for your persuasive essay on abortion. Think carefully about the topic you want to write about and make sure it is something that interests you.

Check out m ore persuasive essay topics that will help you explore other things that you can write about!

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Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

Here are some facts about abortion that will help you formulate better arguments.

According to the Guttmacher Institute , 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion.
The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester.
Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with less than a 0.5% risk of major complications.
In the United States, 14 states have laws that restrict or ban most forms of abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
Seven out of 198 nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In places where abortion is illegal, more women die during childbirth and due to complications resulting from pregnancy.
A majority of pregnant women who opt for abortions do so for financial and social reasons.
According to estimates, 56 million abortions occur annually.

In conclusion, these are some of the examples, steps, and topics that you can use to write a persuasive essay. Make sure to do your research thoroughly and back up your arguments with evidence. This will make your essay more professional and convincing.

Need the services of a professional essay writing service ? We've got your back!

MyPerfectWords.com is a persuasive essay writing service that provides help to students in the form of professionally written essays. Our persuasive essay writer can craft quality persuasive essays on any topic, including abortion.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should i talk about in an essay about abortion.

When writing an essay about abortion, it is important to cover all the aspects of the subject. This includes discussing both sides of the argument, providing facts and evidence to support your claims, and exploring potential solutions.

What is a good argument for abortion?

A good argument for abortion could be that it is a woman’s choice to choose whether or not to have an abortion. It is also important to consider the potential risks of carrying a pregnancy to term.

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Home — Blog — Topic Ideas — 50 Abortion Essay Topics: Researching Abortion-Related Subjects

50 Abortion Essay Topics: Researching Abortion-Related Subjects

Abortion remains a contentious social and political issue, with deeply held beliefs and strong emotions shaping the debate. It is a topic that has been at the forefront of public discourse for decades, sparking heated arguments and evoking a range of perspectives from individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide.

The complexity of abortion stems from its intersection with fundamental human rights, ethical principles, and societal norms. It raises questions about the sanctity of life, individual autonomy, gender equality, and public health, making it a challenging yet critically important subject to explore and analyze.

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the significance of choosing the right abortion essay topics and abortion title ideas , offering valuable insights and practical advice for students navigating this challenging yet rewarding endeavor. By understanding the multifaceted nature of abortion and its far-reaching implications, students can make informed decisions about their topic selection, setting themselves up for success in producing well-researched, insightful, and impactful essays.

Choosing the Right Abortion Essay Topic

For students who are tasked with writing an essay on abortion, choosing the right topic is essential. A well-chosen topic can be the difference between a well-researched, insightful, and impactful piece of writing and a superficial, uninspired, and forgettable one.

This guide delves into the significance of selecting the right abortion essay topic, providing valuable insights for students embarking on this challenging yet rewarding endeavor. By understanding the multifaceted nature of abortion and its far-reaching implications, students can identify topics that align with their interests, research capabilities, and the overall objectives of their essays.

Abortion remains a contentious social and political issue, with deeply held beliefs and strong emotions shaping the debate on abortion topics . It is a topic that has been at the forefront of public discourse for decades, sparking heated arguments and evoking a range of perspectives from individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide.

List of Abortion Argumentative Essay Topics

Abortion argumentative essay topics typically revolve around the ethical, legal, and societal aspects of this controversial issue. These topics often involve debates and discussions, requiring students to present well-reasoned arguments supported by evidence and persuasive language.

The Bodily Autonomy vs. Fetal Rights Debate: A Balancing Act
Navigating the Ethical Labyrinth of Abortion: Life, Choice, and Consequences
Championing Gender Equality and Reproductive Freedom in the Abortion Debate
Considering Abortion as a Human Right
The Impact of Abortion Stigma on Women's Mental Health and Well-being
The Impact of Abortion Restrictions on Poverty, Inequality, and Social Disparities
Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Abortion Access and Health Outcomes
Analyzing the Impact of Public Opinion and Voter Attitudes on Abortion Legislation
Discussion on Whether Abortion is a Crime
Abortion Restrictions and Women's Economic Opportunity
Government Intervention in Abortion Regulation
Religion, Morality, and Abortion Attitudes
Parental Notification and Consent Laws
Education and Counseling for Informed Abortion Choices
Media Representation and Abortion Perceptions

Ethical Considerations: Abortion raises profound ethical questions about the sanctity of life, personhood, and individual choice. Students can explore these ethical dilemmas by examining the moral implications of abortion, the rights of the unborn, and the role of personal conscience in decision-making.

Legal Aspects: The legal landscape surrounding abortion is constantly evolving, with varying regulations and restrictions across different jurisdictions. Students can delve into the legal aspects of abortion by analyzing the impact of laws and policies on access, safety, and the well-being of women.

Societal Impact: Abortion has a significant impact on society, influencing public health, gender equality, and social justice. Students can explore the societal implications of abortion by examining its impact on maternal health, reproductive rights, and the lives of marginalized communities.

Effective Abortion Topics for Research Paper

Research papers on abortion demand a more in-depth and comprehensive approach, requiring students to delve into historical, medical, and international perspectives on this multifaceted issue.

Medical Perspectives: The medical aspects of abortion encompass a wide range of topics, from advancements in abortion procedures to the health and safety of women undergoing the procedure. Students can explore medical perspectives by examining the evolution of abortion techniques, the impact of medical interventions on maternal health, and the role of healthcare providers in the abortion debate.

Historical Analysis: Abortion has a long and complex history, with changing attitudes, practices, and laws across different eras. Students can engage in historical analysis by examining the evolution of abortion practices in ancient civilizations, tracing the legal developments surrounding abortion, and exploring the shifting social attitudes towards abortion throughout history.

International Comparisons: Abortion laws and regulations vary widely across different countries, leading to diverse experiences and outcomes. Students can make international comparisons by examining abortion access and restrictions in different regions, analyzing the impact of varying legal frameworks on women's health and rights, and identifying best practices in abortion policies.

List of Abortion Research Paper Topics

The Socioeconomic Factors and Racial Disparities Shaping Abortion Access
Ethical and Social Implications of Emerging Abortion Technologies
Abortion Stigma and Women's Mental Health
Telemedicine and Abortion Access in Rural Areas
International Human Rights and Abortion Access
Reproductive Justice and Other Social Justice Issues
Men's Role in Abortion Decision-Making
Abortion Restrictions and Social Disparities
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Abortion Access
Alternative Approaches to Abortion Regulation
Political Ideology and Abortion Policy Debates
Public Health Campaigns for Informed Abortion Decisions
Abortion Services in Conflict-Affected Areas
Healthcare Providers and Medical Ethics of Abortion
International Cooperation on Abortion Policies

By exploring these topics and subtopics for abortion essays , students can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted nature of the abortion debate and choose a specific focus that aligns with their interests and research objectives.

Choosing Abortion Research Paper Topics

When selecting research paper topics on abortion, it is essential to consider factors such as research feasibility, availability of credible sources, and the potential for original contributions.

Abortion is a complex and multifaceted issue that intersects with various aspects of society and individual lives. By broadening the scope of abortion-related topics, students can explore a wider range of perspectives and insights.

Demystifying Abortion Statistics: Understanding the Global and Domestic Landscape
Abortion and Women's Rights: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective
Decoding the Impact of Abortion on Public Health and Social Welfare
Unveiling the Role of Media and Public Discourse in Shaping Abortion Perceptions
Comparative Analysis of Abortion Laws Worldwide
Historical Evolution of Abortion Rights and Practices
Impact of Abortion on Public Health and Maternal Mortality
Abortion Funding and Access to Reproductive Healthcare
Role of Misinformation and Myths in Abortion Debates
International Perspectives on Abortion and Reproductive Freedom
Abortion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Abortion and Gender Equality in the Global Context
Abortion and Human Rights: A Legal and Ethical Analysis
Religious and Cultural Influences on Abortion Perceptions
Abortion and Social Justice: Addressing Disparities and Marginalization
Anti-abortion and Pro-choice Movements: Comparative Analysis and Impact
Impact of Technological Advancements on Abortion Procedures and Access
Ethical Considerations of New Abortion Technologies and Surrogacy
Role of Advocacy and Activism in Shaping Abortion Policy and Practice
Measuring the Effectiveness of Abortion Policy Interventions

Navigating the complex landscape of abortion-related topics can be a daunting task, but it also offers an opportunity for students to delve into a range of compelling issues and perspectives. By choosing the right topic, students can produce well-researched, insightful, and impactful essays that contribute to the ongoing dialogue on this important subject.

The 50 abortion essay ideas presented in this guide provide a starting point for exploring the intricacies of abortion and its far-reaching implications. Whether students are interested in argumentative essays that engage in ethical, legal, or societal debates or research papers that delve into medical, historical, or international perspectives, this collection offers a wealth of potential topics to ignite their curiosity and challenge their thinking.

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How the Right to Legal Abortion Changed the Arc of All Women’s Lives

By Katha Pollitt

Prochoice demonstrators during the March for Women's Lives rally organized by NOW Washington DC April 5 1992.

I’ve never had an abortion. In this, I am like most American women. A frequently quoted statistic from a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, which reports that one in four women will have an abortion before the age of forty-five, may strike you as high, but it means that a large majority of women never need to end a pregnancy. (Indeed, the abortion rate has been declining for decades, although it’s disputed how much of that decrease is due to better birth control, and wider use of it, and how much to restrictions that have made abortions much harder to get.) Now that the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn Roe v. Wade sometime in the next few years—Alabama has passed a near-total ban on abortion, and Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri have passed “heartbeat” bills that, in effect, ban abortion later than six weeks of pregnancy, and any of these laws, or similar ones, could prove the catalyst—I wonder if women who have never needed to undergo the procedure, and perhaps believe that they never will, realize the many ways that the legal right to abortion has undergirded their lives.

Legal abortion means that the law recognizes a woman as a person. It says that she belongs to herself. Most obviously, it means that a woman has a safe recourse if she becomes pregnant as a result of being raped. (Believe it or not, in some states, the law allows a rapist to sue for custody or visitation rights.) It means that doctors no longer need to deny treatment to pregnant women with certain serious conditions—cancer, heart disease, kidney disease—until after they’ve given birth, by which time their health may have deteriorated irretrievably. And it means that non-Catholic hospitals can treat a woman promptly if she is having a miscarriage. (If she goes to a Catholic hospital, she may have to wait until the embryo or fetus dies. In one hospital, in Ireland, such a delay led to the death of a woman named Savita Halappanavar, who contracted septicemia. Her case spurred a movement to repeal that country’s constitutional amendment banning abortion.)

The legalization of abortion, though, has had broader and more subtle effects than limiting damage in these grave but relatively uncommon scenarios. The revolutionary advances made in the social status of American women during the nineteen-seventies are generally attributed to the availability of oral contraception, which came on the market in 1960. But, according to a 2017 study by the economist Caitlin Knowles Myers, “The Power of Abortion Policy: Re-Examining the Effects of Young Women’s Access to Reproductive Control,” published in the Journal of Political Economy , the effects of the Pill were offset by the fact that more teens and women were having sex, and so birth-control failure affected more people. Complicating the conventional wisdom that oral contraception made sex risk-free for all, the Pill was also not easy for many women to get. Restrictive laws in some states barred it for unmarried women and for women under the age of twenty-one. The Roe decision, in 1973, afforded thousands upon thousands of teen-agers a chance to avoid early marriage and motherhood. Myers writes, “Policies governing access to the pill had little if any effect on the average probabilities of marrying and giving birth at a young age. In contrast, policy environments in which abortion was legal and readily accessible by young women are estimated to have caused a 34 percent reduction in first births, a 19 percent reduction in first marriages, and a 63 percent reduction in ‘shotgun marriages’ prior to age 19.”

Access to legal abortion, whether as a backup to birth control or not, meant that women, like men, could have a sexual life without risking their future. A woman could plan her life without having to consider that it could be derailed by a single sperm. She could dream bigger dreams. Under the old rules, inculcated from girlhood, if a woman got pregnant at a young age, she married her boyfriend; and, expecting early marriage and kids, she wouldn’t have invested too heavily in her education in any case, and she would have chosen work that she could drop in and out of as family demands required.

In 1970, the average age of first-time American mothers was younger than twenty-two. Today, more women postpone marriage until they are ready for it. (Early marriages are notoriously unstable, so, if you’re glad that the divorce rate is down, you can, in part, thank Roe.) Women can also postpone childbearing until they are prepared for it, which takes some serious doing in a country that lacks paid parental leave and affordable childcare, and where discrimination against pregnant women and mothers is still widespread. For all the hand-wringing about lower birth rates, most women— eighty-six per cent of them —still become mothers. They just do it later, and have fewer children.

Most women don’t enter fields that require years of graduate-school education, but all women have benefitted from having larger numbers of women in those fields. It was female lawyers, for example, who brought cases that opened up good blue-collar jobs to women. Without more women obtaining law degrees, would men still be shaping all our legislation? Without the large numbers of women who have entered the medical professions, would psychiatrists still be telling women that they suffered from penis envy and were masochistic by nature? Would women still routinely undergo unnecessary hysterectomies? Without increased numbers of women in academia, and without the new field of women’s studies, would children still be taught, as I was, that, a hundred years ago this month, Woodrow Wilson “gave” women the vote? There has been a revolution in every field, and the women in those fields have led it.

It is frequently pointed out that the states passing abortion restrictions and bans are states where women’s status remains particularly low. Take Alabama. According to one study , by almost every index—pay, workforce participation, percentage of single mothers living in poverty, mortality due to conditions such as heart disease and stroke—the state scores among the worst for women. Children don’t fare much better: according to U.S. News rankings , Alabama is the worst state for education. It also has one of the nation’s highest rates of infant mortality (only half the counties have even one ob-gyn), and it has refused to expand Medicaid, either through the Affordable Care Act or on its own. Only four women sit in Alabama’s thirty-five-member State Senate, and none of them voted for the ban. Maybe that’s why an amendment to the bill proposed by State Senator Linda Coleman-Madison was voted down. It would have provided prenatal care and medical care for a woman and child in cases where the new law prevents the woman from obtaining an abortion. Interestingly, the law allows in-vitro fertilization, a procedure that often results in the discarding of fertilized eggs. As Clyde Chambliss, the bill’s chief sponsor in the state senate, put it, “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.” In other words, life only begins at conception if there’s a woman’s body to control.

Indifference to women and children isn’t an oversight. This is why calls for better sex education and wider access to birth control are non-starters, even though they have helped lower the rate of unwanted pregnancies, which is the cause of abortion. The point isn’t to prevent unwanted pregnancy. (States with strong anti-abortion laws have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country; Alabama is among them.) The point is to roll back modernity for women.

So, if women who have never had an abortion, and don’t expect to, think that the new restrictions and bans won’t affect them, they are wrong. The new laws will fall most heavily on poor women, disproportionately on women of color, who have the highest abortion rates and will be hard-pressed to travel to distant clinics.

But without legal, accessible abortion, the assumptions that have shaped all women’s lives in the past few decades—including that they, not a torn condom or a missed pill or a rapist, will decide what happens to their bodies and their futures—will change. Women and their daughters will have a harder time, and there will be plenty of people who will say that they were foolish to think that it could be otherwise.

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The Messiness of Reproduction and the Dishonesty of Anti-Abortion Propaganda

By Jia Tolentino

A Supreme Court Reporter Defines the Threat to Abortion Rights

By Isaac Chotiner

By Jessica Winter

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice

Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice , Routledge, 2011, 246 pp., $39.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780415884693.

Reviewed by Don Marquis, University of Kansas

Christopher Kaczor defends the Catholic view, or what is sometimes known as the substantial identity view, of the wrongness of abortion. This is not a religious view. It is a natural law argument. Its core is the syllogism that because all human beings have a serious right to life and because human fetuses are human beings, human fetuses have a serious right to life. A human being is a biological organism that belongs to our species. Judith Thomson's famous defense of abortion does not succeed. Therefore, abortion is wrong. The minor premise of this syllogism is a true claim in biology. With the exception of the discussion of Thomson's view, the major premise is the locus of philosophical interest.

Although I believe that Kaczor's positive defense of the major premise does not succeed, this book contains much of great value. A major portion of Kaczor's book is devoted to critical discussions of views concerning the right to life that are incompatible with the major premise of the above syllogism. Many of these discussions are of great interest and have great merit. Although some of these analyses can be found elsewhere in the extensive literature on the abortion issue, Kaczor's book contains the most complete, the most penetrating and the most up-to-date set of critiques of the arguments for abortion choice presently available. It is required reading for anyone seriously interested in the abortion issue. It is a good introduction for anyone who wishes to read a serious and thoughtful account of all of the various serious philosophical views that support the right to abortion. It deserves careful study. I certainly would not endorse every single argument in the book. Nevertheless, Kaczor's book contains much good material. I highly recommend it.

Two of Kaczor's analyses are especially important. The first concerns accounts of what it is to be a person found in the writings of Michael Tooley, Peter Singer, and Mary Anne Warren. These accounts are given in psychological terms and are intended to include in the class of persons human beings after the time of infancy and to exclude human beings prior to birth. I have been inclined to take these accounts for granted, but to question the arguments for the claim that one has the right to life if and only if one is now a person in one of these psychological senses. However, Kaczor offers a thoughtful discussion in which he questions whether such accounts of being a person succeed in including everyone in the class of human beings after the time of infancy. The difficulty that Kaczor discusses concerns giving an adequate and non-arbitrary account of the capacity to exhibit psychological traits that, on the one hand, excludes fetuses and, on the other hand, includes all of those individuals past infancy who have the right to life. Kaczor shows that this task is harder than it seems. Kaczor's discussion constitutes yet another serious challenge to all those philosophers who wish to defend abortion choice by appealing to the claim that fetuses are not yet persons.

Also of particular interest and merit is Kaczor's discussion of the dualistic views Tooley and Jeff McMahan have defended at great length in recent years. Both defend the claim that, because we are essentially persons, we are essentially brains capable of thought. This brain essentialism implies that we did not come into existence until the last part of pregnancy. Kaczor draws on the writings of David Hershenov, Eric Olson, and Matthew Liao to construct a critique of this brain essentialist view. Kaczor's analysis of brain essentialism is a forceful critique of the Tooley-McMahan view. Furthermore, it is a nice summary of the best of the recent literature critical of brain essentialism. This book is worth reading just for this incisive account.

Kaczor's book is organized in the following way. Kaczor treats 'is a person' as synonymous with 'has a serious right to life'. Kaczor's book is divided into chapters most of which have titles of the form "Does Personhood Begin at X?" Substitution instances of 'at X' are 'after birth' 'at birth' 'during pregnancy' 'at conception' 'when the product of conception is no longer an embryo'. He also discusses Thomson's famous defense of abortion and "hard cases". A final chapter is concerned with artificial wombs.

Of course, it is not at all surprising that a book on abortion written by an author in the Catholic tradition should have this organization, but it is less than optimal. One problem is that the term 'person' has become fixed in the mind of philosophers familiar with the philosophical pro-choice tradition as having roughly the meaning that Mary Anne Warren famously attributed to it. To adopt another use of 'person' for the architecture of one's book appears to build a bias into one's analysis. The other problem is that much of this book is concerned with critical analyses of the views of others, and the views of others often don't fit well into the categories outlined by Kaczor's chapters. However, these complaints are -- in the final analysis -- matters of presentation only and such matters do not need to get in the way of the pleasure one can receive from reading this fine book.

Kaczor's positive defense of the claim that all human beings have the right to life is weaker than the rest of the book. On the one hand, to those not familiar with the philosophical literature on abortion, this proposition seems an obvious, and widely accepted, moral truth. It is, no doubt, difficult to forego the obvious rhetorical advantage obtained by basing one's view on this widely accepted claim. On the other hand, this claim has been subjected to two major criticisms, both set out clearly by Peter Singer over thirty years ago in Practical Ethics , and both discussed by Kaczor. The first can be called 'the speciesism objection'. 'Human being' is a biological concept. The wrongness of racism and sexism is based on the fact that biological properties have, all by themselves, no moral significance whatsoever. If this is so, then it seems to follow that the biological property of being a member of our species has no moral significance whatsoever, unless we equivocate on some notion like 'truly human'.

Kaczor calls the second criticism 'the over-commitment objection'. The claim that all human beings have a serious right to life seems to imply that a human being who is in an irreversibly unconscious state, such as an anencephalic child or someone who has experienced severe trauma to her brain or is totally brain dead, has a serious right to life. It certainly seems counterintuitive to suppose that it would be as wrong to end the life of such a human being as it would be to end the life of you or me. Indeed, perhaps it is not wrong at all. There is a basis for this intuition. Most of you do not believe that, if you were in such a state, an action or an inaction that would end your life would result in a diminution of your life prospects you would ever care about. Any serious defense of Kaczor's major premise requires dealing with these standard objections. Kaczor tries to deal with them. Is he successful?

Kaczor deals with the speciesism objection by offering a number of arguments. First, he appeals to the argument that since there are no other ethically relevant differences between ourselves and younger humans, and since we have the right to life, all human beings have the right to life. However, such an argument by elimination is hardly a firm foundation for a position that flies in the face of the important value of reproductive choice. After all, how can we be sure that we have surveyed all of the other potentially ethically relevant differences? Second, Kaczor treats the speciesism objection as merely linguistic. However, this suggests only that he has not come to grips with its strongest version. Third, Kaczor argues that the right to life must be based upon endowment, not performance. What people are capable of doing comes in degrees. This is incompatible with our commitment to human equality. Therefore, the right to life must be based on our endowment, on the genetics that we have in common with all other human beings. This, I am afraid, looks a good deal like the earlier argument by elimination that is surely insufficient as a basis for the right to life. Furthermore, one wonders why the right to life cannot be an equal right that one obtains by meeting some performance threshold, just as all students who pass their junior year in high school have the equal right to enroll for their senior year, whether they passed their junior year with flying colors or barely eked out passing grades.

Kaczor's strongest argument appeals to what he describes as the orientation of all human beings toward freedom and reason. The virtue of this move is that it gets our values into the account of the basis for our rights. The trouble with this move is that either this orientation is entirely a matter of the genetics that make us members of the human species or it is not. On the one hand, if it is just a matter of our human genetics, then, perhaps, it may yield the equality of all human beings. The trouble is that some individuals who are genetically enough like us to be counted as humans, such as the irreversibly unconscious, are not capable of freedom and reason. Therefore, the human genetics criterion divorces Kaczor's criterion of the right to life from the fact that as humans we (typically) value freedom and reason. On the other hand, if our orientation toward freedom and reason depends upon factors other than our genetic code, then we can retain a value-based criterion for the right to life, but anencephalic human beings, the severely retarded and severely demented, and those who have suffered the fate of being rendered irreversibly unconscious will lack the right to life. Therefore, it will be false that all humans have the right to life. The claim that our species is defined as the class of rational animals only avoids this problem by a shallow linguistic move. Each human who is irreversibly unconscious is, after all, a member of a species, the typical members of which are rational animals, even if she is not herself a rational animal. This point can be put in the following way. We can distinguish between those who are directly and those who are indirectly rational animals. A successful argument will not rest on obscuring this distinction.

Of course, the difficulty to which I am referring is what Kaczor calls 'the over-commitment objection'. (116-119). If all humans have the right to life, then we seem to be committed to too much. Kaczor's responses to this objection are sketchy at best. He suggests that one might want to hold that "the right to life is an alienable right, or that neocortical death should be defined as death or that human beings in permanent comas have a different right to life than human beings in temporary comas." (119) He concludes that the view that all human beings have the right to life does not necessarily lead to the view that it is wrong to end the lives of those who cannot be characterized directly as rational animals.

This is an almost unbelievably weak response to what Kaczor recognizes is one of the major objections to his positive account of the right to life. It certainly will not persuade those who wonder whether Kaczor's appeal to equality considerations to justify the right to life of all human beings is consistent with the view that the permanently comatose may have a different (read 'lesser') right to life than the rest of us. It will certainly not persuade those who agree with the orthodox Vatican view that not to provide ordinary care, such as food and water, to any human being, no matter how profoundly disabled, is intentionally to end an innocent human life and is, therefore, wrong. It will certainly not persuade anyone who is convinced (as I am) by the arguments of Alan Shewmon that the death of the brain is not sufficient for the death of a human being. It will not persuade anyone who recognizes that the arguments for the neocortical definition of death depend on the doctrine of brain essentialism, a doctrine Kaczor so emphatically rejects.

Even if all of these difficulties survive analysis, it does not follow that abortion is morally permissible. Nevertheless, it does imply that the major premise of the syllogism that Kaczor endorses as the basis for his view should be rejected. Kaczor's weak arguments are not a sufficient basis for overriding the important value of reproductive choice.

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5.1: Arguments Against Abortion

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Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob
Morehouse College & University of South Carolina Sumter via Open Philosophy Press

We will begin with arguments for the conclusion that abortion is generally wrong , perhaps nearly always wrong . These can be seen as reasons to believe fetuses have the “right to life” or are otherwise seriously wrong to kill.

5.1.1 Fetuses are human

First, there is the claim that fetuses are “human” and so abortion is wrong. People sometimes debate whether fetuses are human , but fetuses found in (human) women clearly are biologically human : they aren’t cats or dogs. And so we have this argument, with a clearly true first premise:

Fetuses are biologically human.

All things that are biologically human are wrong to kill.

Therefore, fetuses are wrong to kill.

The second premise, however, is false, as easy counterexamples show. Consider some random living biologically human cells or tissues in a petri dish. It wouldn’t be wrong at all to wash those cells or tissues down the drain, killing them; scratching yourself or shaving might kill some biologically human skin cells, but that’s not wrong; a tumor might be biologically human, but not wrong to kill. So just because something is biologically human, that does not at all mean it’s wrong to kill that thing. We saw this same point about what’s merely biologically alive.

This suggests a deficiency in some common understandings of the important idea of “human rights.” “Human rights” are sometimes described as rights someone has just because they are human or simply in virtue of being human .

But the human cells in the petri dish above don’t have “human rights” and a human heart wouldn’t have “human rights” either. Many examples would make it clear that merely being biologically human doesn’t give something human rights. And many human rights advocates do not think that abortion is wrong, despite recognizing that (human) fetuses are biologically human.

The problem about what is often said about human rights is that people often do not think about what makes human beings have rights or why we have them, when we have them. The common explanation, that we have (human) rights just because we are (biologically) human , is incorrect, as the above discussion makes clear. This misunderstanding of the basis or foundation of human rights is problematic because it leads to a widespread, misplaced fixation on whether fetuses are merely biologically “human” and the mistaken thought that if they are, they have “human rights.” To address this problem, we need to identify better, more fundamental, explanations why we have rights, or why killing us is generally wrong, and see how those explanations might apply to fetuses, as we are doing here.

It might be that when people appeal to the importance and value of being “human,” the concern isn’t our biology itself, but the psychological characteristics that many human beings have: consciousness, awareness, feelings and so on. We will discuss this different meaning of “human” below. This meaning of “human” might be better expressed as conscious being , or “person,” or human person. This might be what people have in mind when they argue that fetuses aren’t even “human.”

Human rights are vitally important, and we would do better if we spoke in terms of “conscious-being rights” or “person-rights,” not “human rights.” This more accurate and informed understanding and terminology would help address human rights issues in general, and help us better think through ethical questions about biologically human embryos and fetuses.

5.1.2 Fetuses are human beings

Some respond to the arguments above—against the significance of being merely biologically human—by observing that fetuses aren’t just mere human cells, but are organized in ways that make them beings or organisms . (A kidney is part of a “being,” but the “being” is the whole organism.) That suggests this argument:

Fetuses are human beings or organisms .

All human beings or organisms are wrong to kill.

Therefore, fetuses are wrong to kill, so abortion is wrong.

The first premise is true: fetuses are dependent beings, but dependent beings are still beings.

The second premise, however, is the challenge, in terms of providing good reasons to accept it. Clearly many human beings or organisms are wrong to kill, or wrong to kill unless there’s a good reason that would justify that killing, e.g., self-defense. (This is often described by philosophers as us being prima facie wrong to kill, in contrast to absolutely or necessarily wrong to kill.) Why is this though? What makes us wrong to kill? And do these answers suggest that all human beings or organisms are wrong to kill?

Above it was argued that we are wrong to kill because we are conscious and feeling: we are aware of the world, have feelings and our perspectives can go better or worse for us —we can be harmed— and that’s what makes killing us wrong. It may also sometimes be not wrong to let us die, and perhaps even kill us, if we come to completely and permanently lacking consciousness, say from major brain damage or a coma, since we can’t be harmed by death anymore: we might even be described as dead in the sense of being “brain dead.” 10

So, on this explanation, human beings are wrong to kill, when they are wrong to kill, not because they are human beings (a circular explanation), but because we have psychological, mental or emotional characteristics like these. This explains why we have rights in a simple, common-sense way: it also simply explains why rocks, microorganisms and plants don’t have rights. The challenge then is explaining why fetuses that have never been conscious or had any feeling or awareness would be wrong to kill. How then can the second premise above, general to all human organisms, be supported, especially when applied to early fetuses?

One common attempt is to argue that early fetuses are wrong to kill because there is continuous development from fetuses to us, and since we are wrong to kill now , fetuses are also wrong to kill, since we’ve been the “same being” all along. 11 But this can’t be good reasoning, since we have many physical, cognitive, emotional and moral characteristics now that we lacked as fetuses (and as children). So even if we are the “same being” over time, even if we were once early fetuses, that doesn’t show that fetuses have the moral rights that babies, children and adults have: we, our bodies and our rights sometimes change.

A second attempt proposes that rights are essential to human organisms: they have them whenever they exist. This perspective sees having rights, or the characteristics that make someone have rights, as essential to living human organisms. The claim is that “having rights” is an essential property of human beings or organisms, and so whenever there’s a living human organism, there’s someone with rights, even if that organism totally lacks consciousness, like an early fetus. (In contrast, the proposal we advocate for about what makes us have rights understands rights as “accidental” to our bodies but “essential” to our minds or awareness, since our bodies haven’t always “contained” a conscious being, so to speak.)

Such a view supports the premise above; maybe it just is that premise above. But why believe that rights are essential to human organisms? Some argue this is because of what “kind” of beings we are, which is often presumed to be “rational beings.” The reasoning seems to be this: first, that rights come from being a rational being: this is part of our “nature.” Second, that all human organisms, including fetuses, are the “kind” of being that is a “rational being,” so every being of the “kind” rational being has rights. 12

In response, this explanation might seem question-begging: it might amount to just asserting that all human beings have rights. This explanation is, at least, abstract. It seems to involve some categorization and a claim that everyone who is in a certain category has some of the same moral characteristics that others in that category have, but because of a characteristic (actual rationality) that only these others have: so, these others profoundly define what everyone else is . If this makes sense, why not also categorize us all as not rational beings , if we are the same kind of beings as fetuses that are actually not rational?

This explanation might seem to involve thinking that rights somehow “trickle down” from later rationality to our embryonic origins, and so what we have later we also have earlier , because we are the same being or the same “kind” of being. But this idea is, in general, doubtful: we are now responsible beings, in part because we are rational beings, but fetuses aren’t responsible for anything. And we are now able to engage in moral reasoning since we are rational beings, but fetuses don’t have the “rights” that uniquely depend on moral reasoning abilities. So that an individual is a member of some general group or kind doesn’t tell us much about their rights: that depends on the actual details about that individual, beyond their being members of a group or kind.

To make this more concrete, return to the permanently comatose individuals mentioned above: are we the same kind of beings, of the same “essence,” as these human beings? If so, then it seems that some human beings can be not wrong to let die or kill, when they have lost consciousness. Therefore, perhaps some other human beings, like early fetuses, are also not wrong to kill before they have gained consciousness . And if we are not the same “kind” of beings, or have different essences, then perhaps we also aren’t the same kind of beings as fetuses either.

Similar questions arise concerning anencephalic babies, tragically born without most of their brains: are they the same “kind” of beings as “regular” babies or us? If so, then—since such babies are arguably morally permissible to let die, even when they could be kept alive, since being alive does them no good—then being of our “kind” doesn’t mean the individual has the same rights as us, since letting us die would be wrong. But if such babies are a different “kind” of beings than us, then pre-conscious fetuses might be of a relevantly different kind also.

So, in general, this proposal that early fetuses essentially have rights is suspect, if we evaluate the reasons given in its support. Even if fetuses and us are the same “kind” of beings (which perhaps we are not!) that doesn’t immediately tell us what rights fetuses would have, if any. And we might even reasonably think that, despite our being the same kind of beings as fetuses (e.g., the same kind of biology), we are also importantly different kinds of beings (e.g., one kind with a mental life and another kind which has never had it). This photograph of a 6-week old fetus might help bring out the ambiguity in what kinds of beings we all are:

In sum, the abstract view that all human organisms have rights essentially needs to be plausibly explained and defended. We need to understand how it really works. We need to be shown why it’s a better explanation, all things considered, than a consciousness and feelings-based theory of rights that simply explains why we, and babies, have rights, why racism, sexism and other forms of clearly wrongful discrimination are wrong, and , importantly, how we might lose rights in irreversible coma cases (if people always retained the right to life in these circumstances, presumably, it would be wrong to let anyone die), and more.

5.1.3 Fetuses are persons

Finally, we get to what some see as the core issue here, namely whether fetuses are persons , and an argument like this:

Fetuses are persons, perhaps from conception.

Persons have the right to life and are wrong to kill.

So, abortion is wrong, as it involves killing persons.

The second premise seems very plausible, but there are some important complications about it that will be discussed later. So let’s focus on the idea of personhood and whether any fetuses are persons. What is it to be a person ? One answer that everyone can agree on is that persons are beings with rights and value . That’s a fine answer, but it takes us back to the initial question: OK, who or what has the rights and value of persons? What makes someone or something a person?

Answers here are often merely asserted , but these answers need to be tested: definitions can be judged in terms of whether they fit how a word is used. We might begin by thinking about what makes us persons. Consider this:

We are persons now. Either we will always be persons or we will cease being persons. If we will cease to be persons, what can end our personhood? If we will always be persons, how could that be?

Both options yield insight into personhood. Many people think that their personhood ends at death or if they were to go into a permanent coma: their body is (biologically) alive but the person is gone: that is why other people are sad. And if we continue to exist after the death of our bodies, as some religions maintain, what continues to exist? The person , perhaps even without a body, some think! Both responses suggest that personhood is defined by a rough and vague set of psychological or mental, rational and emotional characteristics: consciousness, knowledge, memories, and ways of communicating, all psychologically unified by a unique personality.

A second activity supports this understanding:

Make a list of things that are definitely not persons . Make a list of individuals who definitely are persons . Make a list of imaginary or fictional personified beings which, if existed, would be persons: these beings that fit or display the concept of person, even if they don’t exist. What explains the patterns of the lists?

Rocks, carrots, cups and dead gnats are clearly not persons. We are persons. Science fiction gives us ideas of personified beings: to give something the traits of a person is to indicate what the traits of persons are, so personified beings give insights into what it is to be a person. Even though the non-human characters from, say, Star Wars don’t exist, they fit the concept of person: we could befriend them, work with them, and so on, and we could only do that with persons. A common idea of God is that of an immaterial person who has exceptional power, knowledge, and goodness: you couldn’t pray to a rock and hope that rock would respond: you could only pray to a person. Are conscious and feeling animals, like chimpanzees, dolphins, cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, and cows more relevantly like us, as persons, or are they more like rocks and cabbages, non-persons? Conscious and feeling animals seem to be closer to persons than not. 13 So, this classificatory and explanatory activity further supports a psychological understanding of personhood: persons are, at root, conscious, aware and feeling beings.

Concerning abortion, early fetuses would not be persons on this account: they are not yet conscious or aware since their brains and nervous systems are either non-existent or insufficiently developed. Consciousness emerges in fetuses much later in pregnancy, likely after the first trimester or a bit beyond. This is after when most abortions occur. Most abortions, then, do not involve killing a person , since the fetus has not developed the characteristics for personhood. We will briefly discuss later abortions, that potentially affect fetuses who are persons or close to it, below.

It is perhaps worthwhile to notice though that if someone believed that fetuses are persons and thought this makes abortion wrong, it’s unclear how they could coherently believe that a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest could permissibly be ended by an abortion. Some who oppose abortion argue that, since you are a person, it would be wrong to kill you now even if you were conceived because of a rape, and so it’s wrong to kill any fetus who is a person, even if they exist because of a rape: whether someone is a person or not doesn’t depend on their origins: it would make no sense to think that, for two otherwise identical fetuses, one is a person but the other isn’t, because that one was conceived by rape. Therefore, those who accept a “personhood argument” against abortion, yet think that abortions in cases of rape are acceptable, seem to have an inconsistent view.

5.1.4 Fetuses are potential persons

If fetuses aren’t persons, they are at least potential persons, meaning they could and would become persons. This is true. This, however, doesn’t mean that they currently have the rights of persons because, in general, potential things of a kind don’t have the rights of actual things of that kind : potential doctors, lawyers, judges, presidents, voters, veterans, adults, parents, spouses, graduates, moral reasoners and more don’t have the rights of actual individuals of those kinds.

Some respond that potential gives the right to at least try to become something. But that trying sometimes involves the cooperation of others: if your friend is a potential medical student, but only if you tutor her for many hours a day, are you obligated to tutor her? If my child is a potential NASCAR champion, am I obligated to buy her a race car to practice? ‘No’ to both and so it is unclear that a pregnant woman would be obligated to provide what’s necessary to bring about a fetus’s potential. (More on that below, concerning the what obligations the right to life imposes on others, in terms of obligations to assist other people.)

5.1.5 Abortion prevents fetuses from experiencing their valuable futures

The argument against abortion that is likely most-discussed by philosophers comes from philosopher Don Marquis. 14 He argues that it is wrong to kill us, typical adults and children, because it deprives us from experiencing our (expected to be) valuable futures, which is a great loss to us . He argues that since fetuses also have valuable futures (“futures like ours” he calls them), they are also wrong to kill. His argument has much to recommend it, but there are reasons to doubt it as well.

First, fetuses don’t seem to have futures like our futures , since—as they are pre-conscious—they are entirely psychologically disconnected from any future experiences: there is no (even broken) chain of experiences from the fetus to that future person’s experiences. Babies are, at least, aware of the current moment, which leads to the next moment; children and adults think about and plan for their futures, but fetuses cannot do these things, being completely unconscious and without a mind.

Second, this fact might even mean that the early fetus doesn’t literally have a future: if your future couldn’t include you being a merely physical, non-conscious object (e.g., you couldn’t be a corpse: if there’s a corpse, you are gone), then non-conscious physical objects, like a fetus, couldn’t literally be a future person. 15 If this is correct, early fetuses don’t even have futures, much less futures like ours. Something would have a future, like ours, only when there is someone there to be psychologically connected to that future: that someone arrives later in pregnancy, after when most abortions occur.

A third objection is more abstract and depends on the “metaphysics” of objects. It begins with the observation that there are single objects with parts with space between them . Indeed almost every object is like this, if you could look close enough: it’s not just single dinette sets, since there is literally some space between the parts of most physical objects. From this, it follows that there seem to be single objects such as an-egg-and-the-sperm-that-would-fertilize-it . And these would also seem to have a future of value, given how Marquis describes this concept. (It should be made clear that sperm and eggs alone do not have futures of value, and Marquis does not claim they do: this is not the objection here). The problem is that contraception, even by abstinence , prevents that thing’s future of value from materializing, and so seems to be wrong when we use Marquis’s reasoning. Since contraception is not wrong, but his general premise suggests that it is , it seems that preventing something from experiencing its valuable future isn’t always wrong and so Marquis’s argument appears to be unsound. 16

In sum, these are some of the most influential arguments against abortion. Our discussion was brief, but these arguments do not appear to be successful: they do not show that abortion is wrong, much less make it clear and obvious that abortion is wrong.

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Five paragraph essay on abortion

This essay discusses three issues that revolve around abortion in order to help the reader better understand abortion issues in general. This is not a comprehensive list of all the issues surrounding abortion, but does explain three issues and then knits them together in the conclusion to show that the abortion issue is not a simple one.

Considering the suffering that unwanted birth causes, it is better to allow abortion so that termination happens before life takes hold outside the womb. Unwanted children are often neglected, put up for adoption, or are pushed into prostitution and crime by parents that do not have their best interests at heart. It results in a life of misery and heartache for the child.

People that do not support abortion do not have adopted children. It would be far easier to digest a no-abortion stance from a person that has adopted children, and yet most (if not all) do not have adopted children. They are basically sending the message that all pregnancies should be taken to term but once the child is out of the womb then they are on their own. The lack of support for neglected and orphan children is already at a level that is going to make people in the future look back and frown in the same way we frown at our ancestors for their treatment of other races.

Unwanted pregnancy ruins the lives of good people. Most of the time is the woman that has to give up ever having a successful career and is quite often left without a man in her life. If the man is also a caring type, then he has to give up 20 years of doing what he wishes, and even his career will often take a knock, especially if he is the primary care giver. People that do not have children will have more money, more life experiences, better health and a better career. All of this is taken away from people if they are not allowed to control when they do and do not conceive.

Unwanted births will invariably cause suffering to the child, especially if the child is not wanted by the parents and knows it. Plus, that child may end up neglected, in an orphanage, or thrust into a life of crime. People that argue against abortion are never prepared to take on the burdens of what would happen if it were banned. Even now, when abortion is allowed, these no-abortion promoters are not prepared to adopt children or help to care for them when their parents cannot. Add to this the fact that a person has to give up opportunities and the choice of a happy life if that person cannot choose when to conceive. People that want children will consider having them something to be happy about, but if a person considers a great career, money or life experiences to be something to be happy about, then having children is going to remove those options and opportunities from them.

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Abortion care guideline [Internet]. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2022.

Abortion care guideline [Internet].

Chapter 1 introduction, 1.1. background and context.

Sexual and reproductive health is fundamental to individuals, couples and families, and to the social and economic development of communities and nations ( 1 ). As provided in the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO), the organization’s objective is “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”, and to fulfil that objective, WHO’s functions include providing technical assistance to countries in the field of health ( 2 , Articles 1 and 2 ). Universal access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services is central to both individual and community health, as well as the realization of human rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of SRH ( 3 ). In addition, the increased SRH risks in humanitarian settings, including armed conflict, require specific attention from a human rights perspective ( 4 [para. 7] , 5 , 6 [paras 19-24] ).

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and based on lessons learnt from previous disease outbreaks – when SRH services have been severely disrupted, causing individuals to feel disempowered and be exposed to preventable health risks – WHO has included comprehensive abortion care in the list of essential health services in certain recent technical publications and guidance ( 7 – 12 ). 1 Abortion care encompasses management of various clinical conditions including spontaneous and induced abortion (of both non-viable and viable pregnancies) and intrauterine fetal demise, and also post-abortion care, including management of incomplete abortion. Strengthening access to abortion care within the health system is fundamental to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relating to good health and well-being (SDG3) and gender equality (SDG5) ( 13 ). WHO’s Global Reproductive Health Strategy, which seeks to accelerate progress towards achievement of international development goals, identifies elimination of unsafe abortion 2 as a priority mandate ( 1 ). The importance of quality abortion care to health is similarly underscored by the United Nations Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, which includes evidence-based interventions for abortion and post-abortion care as one effective way to help individuals thrive and communities transform ( 14 ).

Quality abortion care is foundational to this guidance. Quality of care (see Glossary ) encompasses multiple components: effectiveness, efficiency, accessibility, acceptability (e.g. patient centred), equity and safety. Effective care includes the delivery of evidence-based care that improves the health of individuals and communities, and is responsive to their needs. Efficient care optimizes resource use and minimizes waste. Quality abortion care must be both accessible (timely, affordable, geographically reachable, and provided in a setting where skills and resources are appropriate to medical need) and acceptable (incorporating the preferences and values of individual service users and the cultures of their communities). It is imperative that abortion care is equitable , and that health care does not vary in quality based on the personal characteristics of the person seeking care, such as their gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, if they are living with a disability, or based on their geographic location within a country. And finally, quality abortion care implies that it is safely delivered and minimizes risks and harms to service users ( 15 ). Underpinning these components is the principle that provision of quality abortion care would be in compliance with human rights.

Globally, abortion is a common procedure, with 6 out of 10 unintended pregnancies and 3 out of 10 of all pregnancies ending in induced abortion ( 16 ). When abortion is safe – defined as being carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the gestational age, and by someone with the necessary skills ( 17 ) – the risks are very low. However global estimates demonstrate that 45% of all abortions are unsafe, including 14.4% considered to be “least safe” ( 18 ). This is a critical public health and human rights issue; unsafe abortion is increasingly concentrated in developing countries and among groups in vulnerable and marginalized situations. In countries where induced abortion is highly restricted by law or unavailable due to other barriers, safe abortion has often become the privilege of the rich, while poor women have little choice but to resort to the services of unskilled providers in unsafe settings, or induce abortion themselves often using unsafe methods, leading to deaths and morbidities that become the social and financial responsibility of the public health system, and denial of women’s human rights. The legal status of abortion has no effect on a woman’s likelihood of seeking induced abortion, but it dramatically affects her access to safe abortion ( 19 ).

Between 4.7% and 13.2% of all maternal deaths are attributed to unsafe abortions ( 20 , 21 ). This equates to between 13 865 and 38 940 lives lost annually, due to the failure to provide safe abortion, with many more experiencing serious morbidities. Developing countries bear the burden of 97% of unsafe abortions ( 18 ). The proportion of abortions that are unsafe is also significantly higher in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws than in those with less restrictive laws ( 18 ). Over half (53.8%) of all unsafe abortions occur in Asia (the majority of those in south and central Asia), while another quarter (24.8%) occur in Africa (mainly in eastern and western Africa), and a further fifth (19.5%) in Latin America and the Caribbean ( 18 ). The subregions where the highest proportions of abortions have been categorized as “least safe” are northern, eastern, western and middle Africa (approximately 45–70% of all abortions are “least safe”), followed by the Caribbean, Oceania and Central America (approximately 25–30% of all abortions are “least safe”) ( 18 ). A review of facility-based treatment for complications of unsafe abortion in 26 developing countries in 2012 indicated that 7 million women were treated in developing countries for complications of unsafe abortion that year – a rate of 6.9 per 1000 women aged 15–44 years ( 22 ).

Abortion, using medication or a simple outpatient surgical procedure, is a safe health-care intervention, when carried out with a method appropriate to the gestational age of pregnancy and – in the case of a facility-based procedure – by a person with the necessary skills. In these circumstances, complications or serious adverse effects are rare. Medical abortion has revolutionized access to quality abortion care globally. Studies have demonstrated that medicines for abortion can be safely and effectively self-administered outside of a facility (e.g. at home). Individuals with a source of accurate information and access to a trained health worker (in case they need or want support at any stage of the process) can safely self-manage their abortion process in the first 12 weeks of gestation. Service delivery with minimal medical supervision can significantly improve access, particularly in restricted settings and crisis situations, as well as improve privacy, convenience and acceptability of the abortion process without compromising safety and effectiveness ( 23 ).

However, in both low- and high-resource settings, law, policy and practical barriers can make it difficult to access quality abortion care. Multiple actions are needed at the legal, health system and community levels so that everyone who needs it has access to comprehensive abortion care ( CAC ), i.e. information, abortion management (including induced abortion, and care related to pregnancy loss/spontaneous abortion) and post-abortion care.

1.2. Guideline objective, rationale, target audience, inclusivity and structure

Guidelines are the fundamental means through which WHO fulfils its technical leadership in health (24). WHO guidelines are subject to a rigorous quality assurance process that generates recommendations for clinical practice or public health policy with the aim of achieving the best possible individual or collective health outcomes . Towards this aim, WHO has made a commitment to integrate human rights into health-care programmes and policies at national and regional levels by looking at underlying determinants of health as part of a comprehensive approach to health and human rights .

1.2.1. Objective and rationale

The objective of this guideline is to present the complete set of all WHO recommendations and best practice statements relating to abortion, with the goal of enabling evidence-based quality abortion care globally.

Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems, second edition (2012)
Health worker roles in providing safe abortion care and post-abortion contraception (previously known as the “task sharing” guidance) (2015), and
Medical management of abortion (2018).

This guideline is intended to provide concrete information and guidance, integrating aspects of care across all domains needed to provide quality abortion care: Law and policy, Clinical services and Service delivery. This guidance contains new recommendations consolidated with existing recommendations that remain unchanged and some that have been updated after re-assessment, using the same rigorous methods for both new and updated recommendations (see Annex 4: Methods ). Among the recommendations are seven concerning the laws and policies that should or should not be in place, in order to fully implement and sustain quality abortion care: three recommendations relating to abortion regulation are presented in Chapter 2 and four more relating to laws and policies affecting clinical and health worker practices are presented in Chapter 3 . All the other recommendations address methods of abortion and related clinical care as well as service delivery by a range of health workers and approaches, including self-management by the abortion seeker, reflecting recent changes in all these aspects of abortion care. Emerging areas of interest and research priorities in abortion care are identified in Chapter 4 .

As a key part of the rationale for developing this updated and consolidated guideline, important contextual information – which is integral to this guidance, as context for the recommendations and best practice statements – is presented in the remainder of this first chapter. This information is not in the form of WHO recommendations but rather it describes the underlying determinants of quality abortion care, and thus must be carefully considered. Section 1.3 below describes an enabling environment for comprehensive abortion care (i.e. a law and policy framework supportive of human rights; access to information; and health system factors) and section 1.4 delves further into key health system considerations (universal health coverage and primary health care; health financing; health workforce training; health-care commodities; and monitoring and evaluation). Where relevant, this document incorporates and builds upon considerations captured in other existing WHO guidance, including Consolidated guideline on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women living with HIV ( 25 ) and WHO consolidated guideline on self-care interventions for health: sexual and reproductive health and rights ( 26 ).

1.2.2. Target audience

This guidance seeks to provide recommendations for national and subnational policy-makers, implementers and managers of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) programmes, members of nongovernmental organizations and other civil society organizations and professional societies, as well as health workers and other stakeholders in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), to support them in ensuring that evidence-based, quality abortion care is available and accessible globally.

1.2.3. Equity, inclusivity and people-centred care

The needs of all individuals with respect to abortion are recognized and acknowledged in this guidance. A human rights approach that advances gender equality is essential and must be applied in all contexts providing services to people seeking health care. To provide quality abortion care throughout the health system, services should also be integrated where possible with other SRH services, such as evidence-based HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing and treatment, and family planning/contraception, and should be friendly and welcoming to youth and people from sexual and gender minorities, people living with disabilities, and all groups in vulnerable and marginalized situations.

WHO guidelines systematically incorporate consideration of the values and preferences of end-users of the recommended or suggested interventions into the process of developing the guidance. To gain more in-depth understanding of the values and preferences of individuals seeking abortion care, WHO conducted a global survey and convened a technical meeting on this subject with stakeholders in September 2019 attended by 19 participants from 15 different countries/organizations. The key themes that emerged were the importance of equity, inclusivity and meeting the needs of those living in the most vulnerable and marginalized situations. In addition, a youth-led technical meeting was convened in April 2021 with 16 youths (representing 13 countries across all WHO regions) from the Youth for Abortion Task Force, to learn about the concerns of youth. The Task Force was formed by the International Youth Alliance for Family Planning (IYAFP) – a collective of young individuals, youth associations, organizations and communities with a common mission to support provision of and access to comprehensive reproductive health services (see Web annex B : Technical meetings during guideline development). Women living with HIV are one example among many of a marginalized population with unique vulnerabilities in the context of abortion care. Women living with HIV face unique challenges and are vulnerable to SRH-related human rights violations within their families and communities, as well as at health-care facilities where they seek care. An enabling environment is essential to promote more effective interventions and better health outcomes for all abortion seekers (see section 1.3 ).

All individuals have the right to non-discrimination and equality in SRH care and services. The right to be free from discrimination is stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in other universal human rights treaties and regional human rights instruments. It has been affirmed that the right to non-discrimination guaranteed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) includes sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. The international human rights system has been strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights without distinction. The protection of persons based on their sexual orientation and gender identity are based on international law, complemented and supplemented by State practice ( 27 ). As stated in the 2018 report of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to the United Nations General Assembly, “The right to effective recognition of one’s gender identity is linked to the right to equal recognition before the law” ( 28 , para. 20 ).

In this guideline, we recognize that most of the available evidence on abortion can be assumed to be derived from research among study populations of cisgender women, and we also recognize that cisgender women, transgender men, nonbinary, gender-fluid and intersex individuals with a female reproductive system and capable of becoming pregnant may require abortion care. To be concise and facilitate readability of this guideline, when referring to all gender diverse people who may require abortion care, we use the word “women” most often, although we also variously use the terms “individual”, “person” and “abortion seeker”. Providers of SRH services, including abortion care, must consider the needs of – and provide equal care to – all individuals; gender identity or its expression must not lead to discrimination.

This guideline takes an integrated, people-centred approach to health services ( 29 ). People-centred care requires that individuals have the education and support they need to make decisions and participate in their own health care ( 30 ). Individual health preferences may vary; no one model of abortion care will meet the needs of everyone seeking abortion care. The core values of dignity, autonomy, equality, confidentiality, communication, social support, supportive care, and trust are foundational to abortion care and are reflected throughout this guidance ( 31 ).

1.2.4. Conceptual structure of the guideline

As illustrated in Figure 1.1 , this guideline is centred on the values and preferences of abortion seekers, and considers them as active participants in as well as beneficiaries of health services. This guidance emphasizes that – as a woman, girl or other pregnant person moves through the abortion care pathway (pre-abortion, abortion, post-abortion) – health services must be integrated within the health sector to ensure that service delivery meets their needs equitably and without discrimination. As each individual moves through this pathway, the guideline provides specific recommendations on the interventions needed (i.e. the “what”), and guidance on the individuals who may safely carry them out (i.e. the “who”). The guideline also provides information on the locations where services can be provided (i.e. the “where”) and outlines service-delivery models that can be used (i.e. the “how”). The enabling environment, described in the remainder of this chapter, provides the context for the effective implementation of these interventions.

Conceptual framework for abortion care.

1.3. An enabling environment for comprehensive abortion care

respect for human rights including a supportive framework of law and policy
the availability and accessibility of information, and
a supportive, universally accessible , affordable and well functioning health system.

For clarification, this section of the guideline document does not provide recommendations – rather it details the components and aspects that would comprise an overall enabling environment for quality abortion care, based on WHO best practices, which would provide the ideal context to best facilitate the recommendations in the later sections of this chapter and in Chapter 3 . While this enabling environment represents an ideal context, complete implementation of the components of this enabling environment is not necessarily a precondition to implementation and application of the recommendations contained in this guideline.

BOX 1.1 Core components of an enabling environment for abortion care

Respect for human rights including a supportive framework of law and policy.

Countries ratify international and regional human rights treaties and conventions addressing health, including sexual and reproductive health (SRH).
Laws and policies promote SRH for all, and are consistent with sexual and reproductive health and rights.

accessible mechanisms for women to challenge denial of abortion in a timely manner, and

appropriate monitoring mechanisms for failure to facilitate quality care, including regular review and reform of law and policy to recognize and remove barriers to quality abortion care.

Policies minimize the rate of unintended pregnancy by providing quality contraceptive information and services, including a full range of contraceptive methods (emergency, short-acting and long-acting methods).
All people and communities receive the health services they need, without suffering financial hardship and without any discrimination.

Availability and accessibility of information

Evidence-based comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is provided for all individuals and made available in multiple and accessible forms and languages.
Accurate, non-biased and evidence-based SRH information, including on abortion and contraceptive methods, is widely available in multiple and accessible forms and languages.

Supportive, universally accessible, affordable and well functioning health system

Universal health coverage (UHC) ensures that all individuals can receive the care they need without financial hardship (see section 1.4.1 ).
The health system is adequately resourced, meaning that resources including essential medicines, supplies, equipment, workforce and financial allocations are available, accessible , acceptable, affordable and of good quality.
Equitable access to quality-assured essential medicines and health products is ensured.
Leadership and clinical standards promote evidence-based SRH services.
The organization of the health system ensures respect for SRH and human rights, including non-discrimination and equality, and for autonomy in decision-making.
The workforce is robust and receives competency-based training and is skilled in the provision of evidence-based SRH counselling and service delivery.
In addition to technical training, SRH services are provided by persons who are trained in the content and meaning of the law and trained and empowered to interpret and apply law and policy in rights-compliant ways.
Confidentiality and privacy of care are ensured, and there are efforts to counteract abortion stigma.
There is access to safe and timely comprehensive abortion care and women do not have to resort to unsafe abortion.
Health financing policies should avoid making access to SRH services conditional on direct payment from patients at the point of service.
Care is always provided respectfully and with compassion.
Communities are engaged and supportive.

1.3.1. Human rights including a supportive framework of law and policy

An enabling environment is one in which the human rights of individuals are respected, protected and fulfilled. This entails regular review and, where necessary, revision of regulatory, law and policy frameworks, and the adoption of measures to ensure compliance with evolving international human rights standards (see Annex 2 ).

Throughout this guideline we refer to human rights standards in international law, the applicability of which in a specific setting will depend on factors such as the State’s ratification of relevant human rights instruments. The sources of these human rights standards are detailed in Web annex A : Key international human rights standards on abortion.

(i) Sexual and reproductive health and rights

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are grounded in a range of human rights recognized and guaranteed in national and international law, and are inextricably linked to the achievement of public health policy goals, including the SDGs ( 32 , 33 ). People have a range of sexual and reproductive rights, which are relevant to information and services across the continuum of care for abortion (see Box 1.2 ). Overarching all of them are principles of non-discrimination and equality, and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including in the provision of SRH services ( 3 , para. 7 ). These are all underpinned by States’ obligations to ensure that laws and policies, institutional arrangements and social practices do not prevent people from the effective enjoyment of their right to SRH ( 3 , para. 8 ).

Box 1.2 provides a general description of certain human rights as established by international law instruments and their associated obligations and principles relevant to SRH.

(ii) Prevention of unsafe abortion and reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity

Taking measures to prevent unsafe abortion is a core obligation of the right to SRH ( 3 , para. 49 ). International human rights law requires States to take steps to reduce maternal mortality and also to effectively protect women from the physical and mental risks (morbidity) associated with unsafe abortion ( 43 , paras 6, 9, 24, 30-33 ). Treaty monitoring bodies (see Annex 2 ) have confirmed that States must revise their laws to ensure this protection ( 36 , para. 8 ). Thus, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has confirmed that States must liberalize restrictive abortion laws, guarantee access to quality abortion and post-abortion care, and respect the right of women to make autonomous decisions about their SRH ( 3 , para. 28 ). In all situations, States have a duty under international human rights law to ensure that the regulation of abortion (see Chapter 2 ) does not cause women and girls to resort to unsafe abortions ( 36 , para. 8 ). As a matter of international human rights law, States must provide essential medicines listed under WHO’s Action Programme on Essential Drugs ( 46 , para. 12a ). States must also take steps to prevent the stigmatization of people seeking abortion ( 36 , para. 8 ). In addition, policies must seek to minimize the rate of unintended pregnancy by ensuring provision of quality contraceptive information and services, including a full range of contraceptive methods (emergency, short-acting and long-acting methods).

(iii) Rights-based regulation of abortion

The right to SRH requires States to ensure that health-care facilities, goods and services are available, accessible , acceptable and of good quality ( 46 , paras 8, 12 ). This should inform all parts of the regulation of abortion.

States may not regulate pregnancy or abortion in a manner that runs contrary to their core obligation to ensure that women and girls do not have to resort to unsafe abortions. If they do, their restrictions on access to abortion must be revised ( 36 , para. 8 ).
The regulation of abortion must not jeopardize the lives of pregnant women, subject them to physical or mental pain or suffering (including where this constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), discriminate against them, or interfere arbitrarily with their privacy ( 36 , para. 8 ).
The regulation of abortion must be evidence based and proportionate to ensure respect for human rights ( 37 , para. 18 ).

BOX 1.2 Selected human rights, as specified in relevant international law instruments, and their associated obligations and principles relevant to sexual and reproductive health and rights and abortion in particular

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Note: For further information, see Web annex A : Key international human rights standards on abortion. Wording used in this box reflects original language used in the source documents (human rights treaties).

Access to abortion must be available when carrying a pregnancy to term would cause the woman substantial pain or suffering. This includes but is not limited to situations where her life and health are at risk, where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or where the pregnancy is not viable ( 36 , para. 8 ). Treaty monitoring bodies have also recommended making abortion available in cases of fetal impairment, while putting in place measures to protect against discrimination on the basis of disability in society ( 60 ).
States should not criminalize having an abortion, those who have an abortion, or those who support someone having an abortion ( 3 [paras 20, 34] , 36 [para. 8] , 55 [para. 18] , 61 [para. 51(l)] , 62 [para. 60] , 63 [paras 82, 107] ).
States should not require health workers to report women who have had or who are suspected to have had an abortion ( 40 , para. 20 ).
States must provide essential primary health care ( 64 , para. 10 ) (see also section 1.4.1 : Universal health coverage and primary health care; section 1.4.4 : Commodities; Annex 2 : Selected human rights treaties and their treaty monitoring bodies; and also Web annex A : Key international human rights standards on abortion).

(iv) Accessibility of abortion care

Health : a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity ( 2 ).
Mental health : a state of well-being in which every individual realizes their own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to their community ( 65 ).

States must take effective steps to prevent third parties (e.g. parent, spouse, health authority) undermining a person’s enjoyment of their right to SRH (see section 3.3.2 : Third-party authorization ) ( 3 , para. 59 ), and must also ensure that provider refusal is not a barrier to accessing abortion care (see section 3.3.9 : Conscientious objection) ( 3 [paras 14, 43] , 39 [Ch.1, paras 11, 13] ).

(v) Free and informed consent

International human rights law requires that the provision of abortion be based on the free and informed consent of the person having the abortion with no further authorization required.

International human rights law obliges States to ensure that accurate, evidence-based abortion information ( 3 [para. 9] , 36 [para. 8] ) is available to individuals on a confidential basis ( 36 [para. 8] , 43 ), and also that their choice to refuse such information when offered is respected ( 58 , para. 15 ). Receipt of such information is vital as this underpins the right and the ability to make informed decisions and choices about matters regarding one’s body and SRH, and to give informed consent (see also section 1.3.2 below).

documented in advance of a health-care intervention, and provided without coercion, undue influence or misrepresentation ( 58 , para. 13 );
safeguarded through legislative, political and administrative means ( 58 , para. 7 ), as a fundamental aspect of a range of human rights (i.e. the rights to health, information, freedom from discrimination, and security and dignity of the person);
based on provision of complete information about the associated benefits, risks and alternatives;
based on information that is of high quality, accurate and accessible (including ensuring it is available in a range of formats and languages, and in forms that make it accessible to people with reduced capacity), and presented in a manner acceptable to the person consenting.

Further relevant information is provided in section 3.2 on information provision and counselling related to abortion for individual abortion seekers, and in section 3.5.1 on follow-up care and section 3.5.4 on post-abortion contraception. States are obliged to protect women from arbitrary interference when they seek SRH services, and to ensure respect for autonomous decision-making by women, including women with disabilities, regarding their SRH and well-being ( 60 ).

Even though women have a right to accurate information, some health workers who object to abortion on the basis of conscience either provide deliberately misleading information or refuse to provide any information about abortion ( 66 – 68 ). States where health workers are allowed to invoke conscientious objection ( 3 , para. 43 ) must regulate and monitor such refusals of abortion care to ensure that women can access accurate information and appropriate services (refer to section 3.3.9 : Conscientious objection).

As a matter of international human rights law, States may not restrict women’s access to health services on the ground that they do not have the authorization of husbands, partners, parents/guardians or health authorities, because they are unmarried, or because they are women ( 39 [Ch.1, paras 14, 21] , 3 [paras 41, 43] ). For adolescents, the authorization or consent of parents should not be required before the provision of abortion care (see also section 3.3.2 : Third-party authorization ). As a general matter, States must recognize children’s and adolescents’ evolving capacity and their associated ability to take decisions that affect their lives ( 69 , Article 5 ). In order to ensure protection of adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health and rights, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health has suggested that States should consider introducing “a legal presumption of competence that an adolescent seeking preventive or time-sensitive health goods or services, including for sexual and reproductive health, has the requisite capacity to access such goods and services” ( 35 , para. 60 ). The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has also urged States to “review and consider allowing children to consent to certain medical treatments and interventions without the permission of a parent, caregiver or guardian, such as … sexual and reproductive health services, including … safe abortion” ( 45 , para. 31 ).

People with disabilities have a right to autonomy ( 59 , Article 3a ), but face continuing and systemic discrimination in access to SRH services. States are obliged to prohibit and prevent discriminatory denial of SRH services to people with disabilities ( 70 , para. 66 ). States may not undertake, and must take steps to prevent forced or coerced abortion ( 40 , para. 11 ), which constitutes torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment ( 40 [para. 11] , 52 [para. 62] ).

(vi) Post-abortion care

Provision of post-abortion care is a core obligation of States under the right to SRH ( 3 , para. 49e ). Regardless of whether abortion is legal or restricted, States are required to ensure access to post-abortion care ( 45 , para. 70 ). Such care must be available on a confidential basis, without discrimination, and without the threat of criminal prosecution or other punitive measures ( 36 , para. 8 ). States must also ensure access to a wide range of modern, safe and affordable contraceptive methods ( 36 [para. 8] , 49 [para. 33] ).

(vii) Accountability for human rights violations

Accountability mechanisms are essential to the protection, respect and fulfilment of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Monitoring and accountability for human rights compliance takes place at national, regional and international levels, as appropriate to the law in question. Monitoring and accountability involve a variety of actors, such as the State itself, civil society organizations, national human rights institutions or international or regional human rights mechanisms. Some such accountability mechanisms include administrative mechanisms for recording and monitoring relevant health outcomes relating to abortion law and policy, and including them in reports to human rights institutions ( 39 , Ch.1, paras 9, 10, 12, 17 ) (see also section 1.4.5 on monitoring and evaluation of abortion care). States must ensure that all persons have access to justice and to a meaningful and effective remedy where their human rights are violated ( 39 , Ch.1, para. 13 ). These remedies can include adequate, effective and prompt reparation in the form of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition ( 3 , para. 64 ), including by reform of law and policy. Mindful of the above, an enabling environment for abortion care would ensure that there are appropriate accountability mechanisms for failures to facilitate quality abortion care, including accessible , transparent and effective accountability mechanisms for women to challenge denial of abortion in a timely manner. In addition, an enabling environment would include appropriate remedies for failure to facilitate quality abortion care, including regular review and reform of law and policy to recognize and remove barriers to quality abortion care. As confirmed by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), such reform should include “[a]bolish[ing] discriminatory criminalization and review[ing] and monitor[ing] all criminal procedures… [and] decriminaliz[ing] forms of behaviour that can be performed only by women, such as abortion” ( 61 , para. 51[l] ).

1.3.2. Availability and accessibility of information

An essential first step in improving access to and quality of abortion care is ensuring that all individuals can access relevant, accurate and evidence-based health information and counselling if and when desired. This is required by international human rights law – grounded in the right to information and the right to privacy (see Box 1.2 ) – and facilitates individual decision-making relating to SRH services, including abortion. Two different types of information about abortion must be available: (i) information of a general nature for the public (described below), and (ii) specific information tailored to be relevant to each person seeking abortion (see section 3.2.1 ) and underpinning free and informed consent, which was described in section 1.3.1(v) .

States parties are to ensure that everyone has a right to receive accurate, non-biased and evidence-based information on SRH. Relatedly, as part of their obligation to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity, States must ensure the provision of comprehensive, non-discriminatory, scientifically accurate and age-appropriate education on sexuality and reproduction, including information on abortion, both in and out of schools ( 46 , 71 [Articles 10, 16] , 72 ) and must ensure that comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is available to minors without the consent of their parents or guardians ( 45 , para. 31 ). In an enabling environment all persons would be provided with all the necessary information to make an informed decision regarding the use of contraception, including information on where and how to obtain an abortion or contraception, the costs of services, and the specifics of any local laws. The growing use of self-management of abortion (see section 3.6.2 ) underlines the need to ensure that accurate information about abortion is available to all who may seek it.

As a matter of international human rights law, the provision of information on abortion should not be criminalized, even in contexts where the procedure itself may be illegal (see section 2.2.1 : Criminalization of abortion). To ensure that accurate information is broadly accessible , including for those with low literacy, an enabling environment would provide that such information is shared using a variety of formats/media as appropriate for the intended audience (e.g. videos, social media). The United Nations CESCR has confirmed that “[t]he dissemination of misinformation and the imposition of restrictions on the right of individuals to access information about SRH also violates the duty to respect human rights. … Such restrictions impede access to information and services, and can fuel stigma and discrimination” ( 3 , para. 41 ).

1.3.3. Health system factors

Within the health system, multiple actions are needed to realize human rights obligations. Actions to facilitate and strengthen abortion-related service delivery should be based on human rights, local health needs and a thorough understanding of the service-delivery system and the broader social, cultural, political and economic context. National standards and guidelines for abortion care should be evidence based and periodically updated, and should provide the necessary guidance to achieve equal access to comprehensive abortion care. Leadership should also promote evidence-based SRH services according to these standards and guidelines.

The right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health includes the right to respectful health care as well as the right to be free from violence and discrimination ( 73 ). The right to benefit from scientific progress and its realization entitles women to access to up-to-date scientific technologies necessary for women. This means States must ensure access to modern and safe forms of contraception (including emergency contraception), abortion medicines, assisted reproductive technologies, and other SRH goods and services, on the basis of non-discrimination and equality ( 49 , para. 33 ). To achieve a high standard of respectful care, health systems should be organized and managed in a manner that ensures respect for people’s SRH and human rights ( 73 ). Respectful health care recognizes individuals’ rights, respects their agency and autonomy in decision-making, and incorporates their values and preferences into care.

In addition to policy and regulatory barriers, other barriers may further limit the availability of abortion services, including: stigma; formal and informal costs; lack of commodities, services, trained providers and information; and/or the unwillingness of some health workers to provide care. This leaves particular groups of people – such as those living in rural settings, those facing financial hardship, adolescents, unmarried, transgender or nonbinary individuals, those with less access to education and those living with HIV – disproportionately vulnerable to barriers to obtaining abortion care. As part of an enabling environment, a health system should be adequately resourced, meaning that resources (e.g. essential medicines, supplies, equipment, workforce, financial allocations) are available, fairly distributed and efficiently used. In this way, adequate and equitable access to quality-assured essential medicines and equipment should be assured. Relatedly, health financing policies should avoid making access to SRH services conditional on direct payment from patients at the point of service, and the health workforce should be skilled in providing evidence-based SRH services, including counselling.

Abortion stigma is common, and has negative psychological consequences for individuals seeking abortion and health workers providing abortion care ( 31 , 74 , 75 ), and can also be detrimental to health outcomes. Abortion stigma is a social process, and is dependent upon the context, but may be considered as an exercise of power and control of one group over members of a less powerful group, who are considered different, negatively stereotyped, discriminated against and marginalized within society ( 75 , 76 ). Work is needed across sectors to counteract stigma; health systems should recognize the risks and effects of stigma, and implement solutions to not only ensure privacy and confidentiality, but also to support health workers. Care should always be provided respectfully and with compassion. In an enabling environment, communities are also engaged and supportive. Those who assist and support abortion seekers – their partners, friends, family members – also require support within the health system and broader environment.

More in-depth consideration of key health system factors is provided in section 1.4 below.

1.4. Health system considerations

The health system refers to all organizations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health ( 77 ). The health system consists of the six core building blocks, as listed in Figure 1.2 , which support four overall goals and outcomes, as shown below. This section addresses in detail health system considerations relevant to an enabling environment for abortion care.

The WHO health system framework.

A well functioning health system, with all the “blocks” working in harmony, depends upon having trained and motivated health workers, a well maintained infrastructure and a reliable supply of medicines and technologies, backed by adequate financing, strong health plans and evidence-based policies. Health -care services provided via the health system are not restricted to those provided at a health-care facility; health care and services can also be received through community-based providers (e.g. health visitors, pharmacists), digital interventions or self-care approaches (e.g. telemedicine).

1.4.1. Universal health coverage and primary health care

Universal health coverage (UHC) means ensuring that all people have access to the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, which must be of sufficient quality to be effective , while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose any users to financial hardship ( 30 ). UHC is integral to the achievement of SDG target 3.8: Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe , effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all. The aim of this target is to accelerate efforts to ensure that all people and communities receive the full spectrum of essential, quality health services they need across the life course, without suffering financial hardship.

To establish an enabling environment, there is a need for abortion care to be integrated into the health system across all levels (including primary, secondary and tertiary) – and supported in the community – to allow for expansion of health worker roles, including self-management approaches. Such integration is a complex process that can occur through service delivery, financing mechanisms and/or inclusion in health benefits packages. While inclusion in health benefits packages may enhance access to and delivery of abortion care, in many countries abortion care is not explicitly recognized in the standard package, contributing to inequitable access to services ( 78 ).

From a health financing perspective, improving access to comprehensive abortion care, as part of UHC , requires shifting the burden of financing away from individuals towards domestic public funding, which combines tax revenue and prepayment schemes to cover the costs of care ( 78 ). Further information is provided in section 1.4.2 below. Meanwhile, from a service-delivery perspective, integrating abortion care within national maternal care and family planning programmes is technically the most straightforward option as abortion services require few, if any, additional provider skills, medicines, equipment or supplies. Furthermore, it is the most efficient option, as it minimizes any additional/marginal costs of implementing abortion services.

Health systems strengthening, by improving performance across all six health system building blocks (see above), is essential to progress towards UHC ( 77 ). The use of new and innovative technologies and approaches for providing, facilitating or supporting abortion services must be incorporated into country programmes and health benefits packages. WHO’s UHC Compendium provides a list of all interventions related to abortion care to be considered for inclusion within a country’s UHC package ( 79 ). 3

To ensure both access to abortion and achievement of UHC , abortion must be centred within primary health care ( PHC ), which itself is fully integrated within the health system, facilitating referral pathways for higher-level care when needed. PHC is a multisectoral, societal approach to health that aims to ensure the highest possible level of health and well-being for all individuals, by focusing on people’s needs and preferences (as individuals, families and communities) along the continuum of care from health promotion and disease prevention to treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care ( 30 ). Quality PHC is evidence-informed, community-delivered and person-centred. Making abortion available and accessible within PHC is a safe and effective strategy to advance equitable access to, and provide an enabling environment for, abortion.

1.4.2. Health financing

raising revenue – establishing sources of funds, including government budgets, compulsory or voluntary prepaid insurance schemes, direct out-of-pocket payments by users, and external aid;
pooling funds – the accumulation of prepaid funds on behalf of some or all of the population; and
purchasing services – the payment or allocation of resources to health-care providers.

In addition, all countries have policies indicating which services the population is entitled to, even if not explicitly stated by the government, and by extension any services not covered are usually paid for out of pocket by patients as user fees or co-payments.

To provide an enabling environment, financing of abortion services should take into account costs to the health system while ensuring that services are free or affordable and readily available to all who need them, in support of the goal of achieving UHC . A recent scoping review captured the costs to the health system and to the woman by categorizing the economic consequences of abortion and abortion policies through three levels: micro-, meso- and macroeconomic. Assessment of the micro-, meso- and macroeconomic levels provided insight into the documented economic consequences of abortions at the individual, community and health system levels ( 80 – 82 ).

Cost to the facility or health system

In regard to costs to the health-care facility and health system, the findings of the review on the mesoeconomic outcomes confirmed that limited resources negatively affect facilities’ ability to meet demand and provide quality services ( 81 ). Furthermore, the costs of post-abortion care, including treatment of post-abortion complications, consume a disproportionate amount of facilities’ resources in many settings, posing a burden to health systems by further depleting their overstretched resources. Therefore, financial savings can be made by maintaining or even improving the quality of abortion care services, and also by decentralizing services and legalizing abortion, as indicated in the macroeconomic assessment ( 82 ).

Providing access to quality abortion care is considerably less costly than treating the complications of unsafe abortion ( 83 – 87 ). Costs for providing abortion care with vacuum aspiration include infrequent, modest capital investments, such as purchase of a suction machine for electric vacuum aspiration (EVA) or manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) equipment, an examination table, a steam sterilizer or autoclave, and possibly also renovation of waiting, consultation and recovery rooms, and toilets. Recurrent costs for surgical or medical abortion include those associated with purchasing instruments and supplies that will need to be restocked regularly, such as cannulae and MVA aspirators, antiseptic solutions and high-level disinfectants used for instrument processing, and medicines for pain management, infection prevention and medical abortion.

Decisions about which abortion methods to offer and how to organize services directly influence the cost of providing services and their affordability. Two organizational issues are of particular importance for both increasing safety and reducing costs: (i) preferential use of either vacuum aspiration or medical abortion, and (ii) facilitating the provision of abortion (e.g. improved access to abortion services, integration into primary health care). Expanding the role of health workers in abortion provision and exploring innovative modes of service-delivery, such as telemedicine and hotlines, have also been identified as cost-saving strategies for national health systems ( 82 ).

Making services affordable for women

In countries where legal access to abortion is available, it remains a challenge to provide abortion services that are publicly funded and free at the point of care ( 88 ). Furthermore, in some settings, financial protection is restricted to specific demographic groups of individuals seeking abortion or certain legal categories of abortion. Abortion seekers may be charged substantial additional fees (on top of the official charges), creating a barrier for many, especially when combined with travel expenses and opportunity costs, such as time lost from paid and unpaid work. In some settings, reimbursement rates for private or public providers working with nongovernmental organizations are well below the cost of providing care. The barrier of high costs of abortion medicines and/or services is likely to generate higher costs for the health system, since these costs force many – especially among the adolescent population ( 89 ) – to present at a later gestational age or to use unsafe providers or methods, thus increasing the rates of hospitalization for serious complications ( 80 , 90 – 92 ). Higher rates of complications, additional fees and high costs all also contribute to the stigmatization of abortion.

Respect, protection and fulfilment of the right to health requires States to guarantee, at a minimum, universal and equitable access to affordable, acceptable and quality SRH services, goods and facilities, in particular for women and disadvantaged and marginalized groups ( 3 , para. 49 ). Thus, in order to provide an enabling environment for abortion care, ability to pay should not have any bearing on women’s ability to access legal abortion services ( 3 [para. 17] , 35 [para. 31] , 39 [Ch.1, para. 21] ).

As part of an enabling environment, considerations of gender equality, human rights and equity should guide the design of health financing policy to reduce if not eliminate the financial barriers for the most vulnerable, and to ensure equitable access to good-quality services ( 93 ). The CEDAW Committee has described fees for abortion as being burdensome to women’s informed choice and autonomy ( 94 , para. 37 ). Where user fees are charged for abortion, this should be based on careful consideration of ability to pay, and fee waivers should be available for those who are facing financial hardship and adolescent abortion seekers. It should be noted, however, that evidence on the success of fee waivers in addressing financial barriers and improving access to quality abortion care is mixed and inconclusive ( 95 ). Numerous treaty monitoring bodies (see Annex 2 ) have recognized that abortion services must be economically accessible , recommending that States lower the cost of abortion or otherwise provide financial support when needed ( 96 [paras 37(b), 38(b)] , 97 [para. 24] , 98 [paras 38, 39] ). Relatedly, the Committee against Torture (CAT) has called on States to ensure free access to abortion in cases of rape ( 99 , para. 15a ). With the above in mind, as far as possible, abortion services and supplies should be mandated for coverage under insurance plans as inability to pay is not an acceptable reason to deny or delay abortion care. Furthermore, having transparent procedures in all health-care facilities can ensure that informal charges are not imposed by staff.

1.4.3. Health workforce competencies and training

Health workers are all people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance health ( 100 ). The delivery of high-quality care requires an adequate supply of competent health workers, who are equitably distributed, and with an optimal skills mix at the facility, outreach and community levels ( 101 ). All health workers need to be adequately supported to provide competent care. The competencies required to provide or support abortion care align with competencies required in many different areas of health ( 102 , 103 ). WHO is currently developing a global competency framework for universal health coverage ( UHC ), which identifies the required competencies for primary health care workers to provide the full spectrum of promotive, preventive, diagnostic, curative and palliative care ( 104 , 105 ).

the unique competencies required for SRH services, in particular for abortion care;
provision of people-centred care;
human rights, and the content and meaning of the law, and how to interpret and apply law and policy in rights-compliant ways;
communication to enable informed decision-making;
values clarification;
interprofessional teamworking; and
empathetic and compassionate approaches to care ( 105 ).

These skills should be included in training programmes and promoted by professional societies. It is especially critical that the attitudes and behaviours of health workers be inclusive, non-judgemental and non-stigmatizing, and that they promote safety and equality. Managers of health care – whether in the public or private sector – are responsible for delivering services appropriately and meeting standards based on professional ethics and internationally agreed human rights principles.

1.4.4. Commodities

Provision of primary health care includes access to safe , effective , quality-assured and affordable medicines, including medicines for abortion and post-abortion care (i.e. antibiotics and pain control medicines as well as abortion medicines and post-abortion contraceptives).

The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (also known as the Essential Medicines List, or EML) includes the minimum medicines needed for a basic health-care system, listing the most efficacious, safe and cost- effective medicines for priority conditions. Priority conditions are selected based on current and estimated future public health relevance, and potential for safe and cost-effective treatment. Both mifepristone and misoprostol have been included in the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines since 2005. In 2019, these medicines were moved from the complementary to the core list of essential medicines in the 21st EML and the requirement for “close medical supervision” for their use was removed ( 107 ). The relevant abortion medicines included in the 21st EML and also the more recent 22nd EML are indicated in Table 1.1 .

Medicines included in the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) and their indications.

Within a country, the key elements of a commodity strategy include policy, regulation, procurement and supply chain, as well as links to financing and reimbursement systems ( 109 ).

Mifepristone and misoprostol should be listed in relevant national EMLs (NEMLs) or their equivalent, and should be included in the relevant clinical care/service delivery guidelines. In the case of pregnancy tests and MVA equipment, countries may have an Essential Medical Devices List or a similar list for medical devices. Pregnancy tests and quality MVA devices should be included on these lists as part of a commodity strategy.

Inclusion in the NEML is one important component of ensuring that quality medicines are available. Misoprostol, mifepristone, surgical abortion equipment and other relevant health products should be included in national procurement tenders as well as in supply chain monitoring activities. Procurement activities should include forecasting methods that are appropriate to the products and to the country context with a goal of ensuring continuous supply ( 110 ). Central Medical Stores (CMS) entities should ensure that specifications for the procurement of safe abortion medicines are coordinated with national medicines regulatory authorities (NMRAs) and that they clearly specify quality assurance standards and all other requirements, such as strength, packaging and shelf life.

WHO recommends that the highest level of quality assurance be pursued but recognizes that risk-based approaches may be needed in countries where access to international markets is limited. Risk-based approaches will depend on the context of a given country but may include exceptions based on prior information about a manufacturer, or reliance on information from other regulators ( 111 ). Quality-assured medicines include those approved by stringent regulatory authorities (SRAs) ( 112 ) 4 or listed through WHO Prequalification (PQ). 5 Where such medicines are not available, approval by an NMRA that includes inspection and testing according to accepted standards should be undertaken for mifepristone and misoprostol. 6

NMRAs are the bodies that provide registration and market authorization for specific products. The NMRA reviews the safety, efficacy and quality of medicines as part of granting market authorization. Such authorization is specific to each medicine made in a particular location by a particular manufacturer. Market authorizations are granted based on an evaluation of a technical dossier presented by the manufacturer, or their agent, confirming the efficacy, quality and safety of the product. Through prequalification, WHO supports a regulatory reliance mechanism where it provides detailed assessment information to NMRAs on products that have been prequalified by WHO, so that the regulatory decision can be made based on WHO’s assessment rather than having to duplicate it. Based on the same principle, WHO also supports the sharing of assessment information for SRA-approved products. These processes are both known as WHO Collaborative Registration Procedures (CRPs). 7

Regulators make determinations regarding the authority to prescribe and dispense medicines. There are examples, including emergency contraception, where regulators have made decisions to change the prescribing authority to improve access and appropriate use, including “over the counter” sales or prescription by a pharmacist without physician consultation. The information that is typically considered includes whether a condition can be reasonably self-diagnosed, the overall safety of the medicine, and the likelihood of misuse or complications with less supervised or unsupervised use of the medicine, among others ( 113 , 114 ). National programmes should work with regulators to determine the most appropriate evidence-based prescribing and dispensing authorities for the medicines. Restrictions on prescribing authority for some categories of health workers may need to be modified or other mechanisms put in place to make the medicines available for these health workers within the regulatory framework of the health system.

A comprehensive commodity strategy and effective approach to access will require: inclusion of the necessary commodities in the NEML; approval from the NMRA (i.e. market authorization or registration); development of mechanisms for forecasting, procurement, distribution and guidance on prescribing and dispensing; and a plan for post-marketing surveillance.

1.4.5. Monitoring and evaluation of quality abortion care

Effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) are essential for measuring abortion quality and trends, as a basis for policy dialogue and evidence-based decision-making to further improve service delivery and quality. To support national scale M&E of the quality of abortion care, WHO is developing a quality abortion care M&E framework based on WHO’s Monitoring and evaluation of health systems strengthening: an operational framework ( 115 ). The structure, domains and indicator areas of the framework, categories for inequality disaggregation and standard data sources are presented in Table 1.2 . A set of abortion care indicators is under development and will be published in the near future (see Annex 6 for a summary about the progress of this M&E work).

The quality abortion care M&E framework will support M&E at the levels of health system input, service delivery, population outcome and impact. M&E of abortion-related services remains weak in most national health systems. Specific gaps in data collection and use must be identified and addressed.

Governance: clarification of the legal status of abortion, adherence of induced abortion protocols in national guidelines to global normative guidance (see also section 1.3.1[vii] );
Financing: inclusion of health financing arrangements for abortion-related care in leading health benefits packages (see section 1.4.2 );
Health workforce: inclusion of competency-based induced abortion care (in line with global normative guidance) in national curricula for relevant categories of health workers (see section 1.4.3 );
Health commodities: inclusion in national essential medicines lists (NEMLs) of mifepristone and misoprostol, monitoring of stock-outs of abortion service commodities at service-delivery points (see section 1.4.4 );
Health management information systems (HMIS): integration of indicators for quality abortion care into the national HMIS.

For this level of input monitoring, data are typically available from administrative sources, including national policy documents, health finance tracking systems, national curricula, logistics management information systems (LMIS) and HMIS.

Service-delivery monitoring tracks the availability of providers trained in and providing induced abortion care, availability of necessary medicines and products at service-delivery points, readiness of the system to provide abortion care to a defined minimum standard, and quality of service delivery, including person-centred care, assessed in part through user and community perspectives. National-level abortion service-delivery monitoring data should be included in health-care facility-level assessments, HMIS and population-based surveys.

Population outcome monitoring for abortion care assesses coverage including (i) access to quality, affordable abortion care, and (ii) population knowledge of access to quality, affordable abortion care. Efforts should be made to disaggregate data by dimensions of inequality, such as ability, age, caste, education, ethnicity, gender, geography and wealth. Population outcome data sources typically include health-care facility-level assessments and population-based surveys and can include HMIS and education management information systems. In many settings, abortion-related population outcome data is a neglected area of data collection and reporting.

Impact measurement for quality abortion care includes abortion-related mortality and morbidity. Estimates in these areas should be disaggregated by dimensions of inequality as much as possible. Data sources include population-based surveys, HMIS and civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) registries.

Where gaps in data availability are identified, investment should be made to address these. In the short term, statistical modelling may be required to estimate indicator values, particularly at the impact level.

Monitoring and evaluation of the quality of abortion care.

When considering the concept of “essential health services”, it is important to note that different areas, even within the same country, may require different approaches to designate essential health services and to reorient health system components to maintain these services ( 7 ).

“Unsafe abortion” refers to abortion when it is carried out by a person lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both.

Available by selecting “Sexual and reproductive health” at this link: https://www .who.int/universal-health-coverage /compendium/interventions-by-programme-area or by searching the database at this link: https://www .who.int/universal-health-coverage /compendium/database

SRAs are listed at this web page: https://www .who.int/initiatives /who-listed-authority-reg-authorities/SRAs . In the cited reference (pp. 34–35), SRAs are defined as “a regulatory authority which is a member or an observer of ICH [International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use], or is associated with an ICH member through a legally-binding mutual recognition agreement” (as before 23 October 2015).

WHO Prequalification is one standard for all types of products, including medicines (pharmaceuticals and biotherapeutics), vaccines and immunization devices, in vitro diagnostics and vector control products. This listing implies a recommendation but not market authorization.

For further information, refer to The International Pharmacopoeia, available at: https: //digicollections .net/phint/2020/index.html#p/home

For further information, see: https://extranet .who .int/pqweb/medicines /collaborative-procedure-accelerated-registration

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Cite this Page Abortion care guideline [Internet]. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2022. Chapter 1, Introduction.
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What the data says about abortion in the u.s..

Pew Research Center has conducted many surveys about abortion over the years, providing a lens into Americans’ views on whether the procedure should be legal, among a host of other questions.

In a Center survey conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion , 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Another survey conducted a few months before the decision showed that relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the issue .

Find answers to common questions about abortion in America, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, which have tracked these patterns for several decades:

How many abortions are there in the U.S. each year?

How has the number of abortions in the u.s. changed over time, what is the abortion rate among women in the u.s. how has it changed over time, what are the most common types of abortion, how many abortion providers are there in the u.s., and how has that number changed, what percentage of abortions are for women who live in a different state from the abortion provider, what are the demographics of women who have had abortions, when during pregnancy do most abortions occur, how often are there medical complications from abortion.

This compilation of data on abortion in the United States draws mainly from two sources: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, both of which have regularly compiled national abortion data for approximately half a century, and which collect their data in different ways.

The CDC data that is highlighted in this post comes from the agency’s “abortion surveillance” reports, which have been published annually since 1974 (and which have included data from 1969). Its figures from 1973 through 1996 include data from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and New York City – 52 “reporting areas” in all. Since 1997, the CDC’s totals have lacked data from some states (most notably California) for the years that those states did not report data to the agency. The four reporting areas that did not submit data to the CDC in 2021 – California, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey – accounted for approximately 25% of all legal induced abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to Guttmacher’s data. Most states, though, do have data in the reports, and the figures for the vast majority of them came from each state’s central health agency, while for some states, the figures came from hospitals and other medical facilities.

Discussion of CDC abortion data involving women’s state of residence, marital status, race, ethnicity, age, abortion history and the number of previous live births excludes the low share of abortions where that information was not supplied. Read the methodology for the CDC’s latest abortion surveillance report , which includes data from 2021, for more details. Previous reports can be found at stacks.cdc.gov by entering “abortion surveillance” into the search box.

For the numbers of deaths caused by induced abortions in 1963 and 1965, this analysis looks at reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. In computing those figures, we excluded abortions listed in the report under the categories “spontaneous or unspecified” or as “other.” (“Spontaneous abortion” is another way of referring to miscarriages.)

Guttmacher data in this post comes from national surveys of abortion providers that Guttmacher has conducted 19 times since 1973. Guttmacher compiles its figures after contacting every known provider of abortions – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, and it provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond to its inquiries. (In 2020, the last year for which it has released data on the number of abortions in the U.S., it used estimates for 12% of abortions.) For most of the 2000s, Guttmacher has conducted these national surveys every three years, each time getting abortion data for the prior two years. For each interim year, Guttmacher has calculated estimates based on trends from its own figures and from other data.

The latest full summary of Guttmacher data came in the institute’s report titled “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2020.” It includes figures for 2020 and 2019 and estimates for 2018. The report includes a methods section.

In addition, this post uses data from StatPearls, an online health care resource, on complications from abortion.

An exact answer is hard to come by. The CDC and the Guttmacher Institute have each tried to measure this for around half a century, but they use different methods and publish different figures.

The last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2021. It found there were 625,978 abortions in the District of Columbia and the 46 states with available data that year, up from 597,355 in those states and D.C. in 2020. The corresponding figure for 2019 was 607,720.

The last year for which Guttmacher reported a yearly national total was 2020. It said there were 930,160 abortions that year in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, compared with 916,460 in 2019.

How the CDC gets its data: It compiles figures that are voluntarily reported by states’ central health agencies, including separate figures for New York City and the District of Columbia. Its latest totals do not include figures from California, Maryland, New Hampshire or New Jersey, which did not report data to the CDC. ( Read the methodology from the latest CDC report .)
How Guttmacher gets its data: It compiles its figures after contacting every known abortion provider – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, then provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond. Guttmacher’s figures are higher than the CDC’s in part because they include data (and in some instances, estimates) from all 50 states. ( Read the institute’s latest full report and methodology .)

While the Guttmacher Institute supports abortion rights, its empirical data on abortions in the U.S. has been widely cited by groups and publications across the political spectrum, including by a number of those that disagree with its positions .

These estimates from Guttmacher and the CDC are results of multiyear efforts to collect data on abortion across the U.S. Last year, Guttmacher also began publishing less precise estimates every few months , based on a much smaller sample of providers.

The figures reported by these organizations include only legal induced abortions conducted by clinics, hospitals or physicians’ offices, or those that make use of abortion pills dispensed from certified facilities such as clinics or physicians’ offices. They do not account for the use of abortion pills that were obtained outside of clinical settings .

(Back to top)

A line chart showing the changing number of legal abortions in the U.S. since the 1970s.

The annual number of U.S. abortions rose for years after Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973, reaching its highest levels around the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. Since then, abortions have generally decreased at what a CDC analysis called “a slow yet steady pace.”

Guttmacher says the number of abortions occurring in the U.S. in 2020 was 40% lower than it was in 1991. According to the CDC, the number was 36% lower in 2021 than in 1991, looking just at the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported both of those years.

(The corresponding line graph shows the long-term trend in the number of legal abortions reported by both organizations. To allow for consistent comparisons over time, the CDC figures in the chart have been adjusted to ensure that the same states are counted from one year to the next. Using that approach, the CDC figure for 2021 is 622,108 legal abortions.)

There have been occasional breaks in this long-term pattern of decline – during the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, and then again in the late 2010s. The CDC reported modest 1% and 2% increases in abortions in 2018 and 2019, and then, after a 2% decrease in 2020, a 5% increase in 2021. Guttmacher reported an 8% increase over the three-year period from 2017 to 2020.

As noted above, these figures do not include abortions that use pills obtained outside of clinical settings.

Guttmacher says that in 2020 there were 14.4 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. Its data shows that the rate of abortions among women has generally been declining in the U.S. since 1981, when it reported there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age range.

The CDC says that in 2021, there were 11.6 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. (That figure excludes data from California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.) Like Guttmacher’s data, the CDC’s figures also suggest a general decline in the abortion rate over time. In 1980, when the CDC reported on all 50 states and D.C., it said there were 25 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44.

That said, both Guttmacher and the CDC say there were slight increases in the rate of abortions during the late 2010s and early 2020s. Guttmacher says the abortion rate per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 rose from 13.5 in 2017 to 14.4 in 2020. The CDC says it rose from 11.2 per 1,000 in 2017 to 11.4 in 2019, before falling back to 11.1 in 2020 and then rising again to 11.6 in 2021. (The CDC’s figures for those years exclude data from California, D.C., Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.)

The CDC broadly divides abortions into two categories: surgical abortions and medication abortions, which involve pills. Since the Food and Drug Administration first approved abortion pills in 2000, their use has increased over time as a share of abortions nationally, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher.

The majority of abortions in the U.S. now involve pills, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. The CDC says 56% of U.S. abortions in 2021 involved pills, up from 53% in 2020 and 44% in 2019. Its figures for 2021 include the District of Columbia and 44 states that provided this data; its figures for 2020 include D.C. and 44 states (though not all of the same states as in 2021), and its figures for 2019 include D.C. and 45 states.

Guttmacher, which measures this every three years, says 53% of U.S. abortions involved pills in 2020, up from 39% in 2017.

Two pills commonly used together for medication abortions are mifepristone, which, taken first, blocks hormones that support a pregnancy, and misoprostol, which then causes the uterus to empty. According to the FDA, medication abortions are safe until 10 weeks into pregnancy.

Surgical abortions conducted during the first trimester of pregnancy typically use a suction process, while the relatively few surgical abortions that occur during the second trimester of a pregnancy typically use a process called dilation and evacuation, according to the UCLA School of Medicine.

In 2020, there were 1,603 facilities in the U.S. that provided abortions, according to Guttmacher . This included 807 clinics, 530 hospitals and 266 physicians’ offices.

A horizontal stacked bar chart showing the total number of abortion providers down since 1982.

While clinics make up half of the facilities that provide abortions, they are the sites where the vast majority (96%) of abortions are administered, either through procedures or the distribution of pills, according to Guttmacher’s 2020 data. (This includes 54% of abortions that are administered at specialized abortion clinics and 43% at nonspecialized clinics.) Hospitals made up 33% of the facilities that provided abortions in 2020 but accounted for only 3% of abortions that year, while just 1% of abortions were conducted by physicians’ offices.

Looking just at clinics – that is, the total number of specialized abortion clinics and nonspecialized clinics in the U.S. – Guttmacher found the total virtually unchanged between 2017 (808 clinics) and 2020 (807 clinics). However, there were regional differences. In the Midwest, the number of clinics that provide abortions increased by 11% during those years, and in the West by 6%. The number of clinics decreased during those years by 9% in the Northeast and 3% in the South.

The total number of abortion providers has declined dramatically since the 1980s. In 1982, according to Guttmacher, there were 2,908 facilities providing abortions in the U.S., including 789 clinics, 1,405 hospitals and 714 physicians’ offices.

The CDC does not track the number of abortion providers.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that provided abortion and residency information to the CDC in 2021, 10.9% of all abortions were performed on women known to live outside the state where the abortion occurred – slightly higher than the percentage in 2020 (9.7%). That year, D.C. and 46 states (though not the same ones as in 2021) reported abortion and residency data. (The total number of abortions used in these calculations included figures for women with both known and unknown residential status.)

The share of reported abortions performed on women outside their state of residence was much higher before the 1973 Roe decision that stopped states from banning abortion. In 1972, 41% of all abortions in D.C. and the 20 states that provided this information to the CDC that year were performed on women outside their state of residence. In 1973, the corresponding figure was 21% in the District of Columbia and the 41 states that provided this information, and in 1974 it was 11% in D.C. and the 43 states that provided data.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported age data to the CDC in 2021, the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s, while about three-in-ten (31%) were in their 30s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 8% of those who had abortions, while women ages 40 to 44 accounted for about 4%.

The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to the CDC , which had data on this from 37 states.

A pie chart showing that, in 2021, majority of abortions were for women who had never had one before.

In the District of Columbia, New York City (but not the rest of New York) and the 31 states that reported racial and ethnic data on abortion to the CDC , 42% of all women who had abortions in 2021 were non-Hispanic Black, while 30% were non-Hispanic White, 22% were Hispanic and 6% were of other races.

Looking at abortion rates among those ages 15 to 44, there were 28.6 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic Black women in 2021; 12.3 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women; 6.4 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic White women; and 9.2 abortions per 1,000 women of other races, the CDC reported from those same 31 states, D.C. and New York City.

For 57% of U.S. women who had induced abortions in 2021, it was the first time they had ever had one, according to the CDC. For nearly a quarter (24%), it was their second abortion. For 11% of women who had an abortion that year, it was their third, and for 8% it was their fourth or more. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

A bar chart showing that most U.S. abortions in 2021 were for women who had previously given birth.

Nearly four-in-ten women who had abortions in 2021 (39%) had no previous live births at the time they had an abortion, according to the CDC . Almost a quarter (24%) of women who had abortions in 2021 had one previous live birth, 20% had two previous live births, 10% had three, and 7% had four or more previous live births. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

The vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester of a pregnancy. In 2021, 93% of abortions occurred during the first trimester – that is, at or before 13 weeks of gestation, according to the CDC . An additional 6% occurred between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, and about 1% were performed at 21 weeks or more of gestation. These CDC figures include data from 40 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

About 2% of all abortions in the U.S. involve some type of complication for the woman , according to an article in StatPearls, an online health care resource. “Most complications are considered minor such as pain, bleeding, infection and post-anesthesia complications,” according to the article.

The CDC calculates case-fatality rates for women from induced abortions – that is, how many women die from abortion-related complications, for every 100,000 legal abortions that occur in the U.S . The rate was lowest during the most recent period examined by the agency (2013 to 2020), when there were 0.45 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. The case-fatality rate reported by the CDC was highest during the first period examined by the agency (1973 to 1977), when it was 2.09 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. During the five-year periods in between, the figure ranged from 0.52 (from 1993 to 1997) to 0.78 (from 1978 to 1982).

The CDC calculates death rates by five-year and seven-year periods because of year-to-year fluctuation in the numbers and due to the relatively low number of women who die from legal induced abortions.

In 2020, the last year for which the CDC has information , six women in the U.S. died due to complications from induced abortions. Four women died in this way in 2019, two in 2018, and three in 2017. (These deaths all followed legal abortions.) Since 1990, the annual number of deaths among women due to legal induced abortion has ranged from two to 12.

The annual number of reported deaths from induced abortions (legal and illegal) tended to be higher in the 1980s, when it ranged from nine to 16, and from 1972 to 1979, when it ranged from 13 to 63. One driver of the decline was the drop in deaths from illegal abortions. There were 39 deaths from illegal abortions in 1972, the last full year before Roe v. Wade. The total fell to 19 in 1973 and to single digits or zero every year after that. (The number of deaths from legal abortions has also declined since then, though with some slight variation over time.)

The number of deaths from induced abortions was considerably higher in the 1960s than afterward. For instance, there were 119 deaths from induced abortions in 1963 and 99 in 1965 , according to reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC is a division of Health and Human Services.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 27, 2022, and first updated June 24, 2022.

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Key facts about the abortion debate in America

Public opinion on abortion, three-in-ten or more democrats and republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion, partisanship a bigger factor than geography in views of abortion access locally, do state laws on abortion reflect public opinion, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

How To Talk About Abortion

We know that the best way to change hearts and minds is to have open and honest conversations with people who know and love us, and remind them of the values we share. This is also true when talking about abortion. So why is it so hard for some people to talk about abortion? Abortion stigma.

Abortion stigma is the shame and silence that surrounds abortion. Stigma is the result of decades of public rhetoric that labels abortion “bad.” It shuts down conversations and makes people feel like they cannot share their experiences without being judged. We, however, want to make sure that the way we speak about abortion promotes acceptance and normalization of this necessary health care that all people should be able to access. By talking with our loved ones about abortion, we can chang e the narrative and reassure people that abortion is essential health care.

Here are some tips for talking about abortion : we'll go over preparing your "why", facts and talking points to use in conversation, conversation starters, and language to use (and avoid).

Step 1 - Prepare your "why"

To fight back against institutions that are chipping away at abortion rights, we need to center those who are affected: all people who can get pregnant, those with low-incomes, and people for whom structural racism has created longstanding barriers to abortion access, such as Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people. Most likely, the reason you want to have these conversations about abortion is because of your own story. Maybe you’ve had an abortion or supported someone else through one. Maybe you’ve been a clinic escort or have experienced a pregnancy scare. If you’re planning to tell your story or share the reasons you support abortion access, here are some ways to prepare:

STEP 1. PREPARE YOUR "WHY"

To fight back against institutions banning abortion, it’s important to lift up the voices of the people most affected — particularly people with low incomes and communities for whom structural racism has created longstanding barriers to abortion access, such as Black, Indigenous, and Latino people. Most likely, the reason you want to have these conversations about abortion is because of your own experiences. Maybe you’ve had an abortion or supported someone else through one. Maybe you’ve been a clinic escort or have experienced a pregnancy scare. Maybe you just want the ability to decide if or when you want to be a parent without any say from the government.

Step 2- Learn the facts!

Here are some resources we recommend:

Considering Abortion - What Facts Do I Need to Know About Abortion?
Planned Parenthood RED ALERT report on abortion restrictions
National Abortion Federation “Women who have abortions”

Step 3 - Plan your audience

We can change hearts and minds by speaking with people we know and trust. Here are a few different groups to consider speaking with about abortion:

Members of a club/volunteer team/church
Social media followers/mutuals
Fitness groups

Be strategic in your timing as you plan these conversations. Rather than just reaching out randomly, create a plan for yourself.

There are many different avenues to have these conversations with our loved ones. There is no guarantee that one conversation will change anyone’s mind, but it’s a good idea to normalize the topic of abortion for people. Your conversations can happen via text, over the phone, in person, direct messaging, over social media, or wherever you think the person will be most receptive.

Step 4 - Get into conversation

For help with conversation openers, try a variation of one of these lines:.

“Hi ___, did you know that abortion is fully banned in about a dozen states? That means people who need an abortion in those states are forced to travel hundreds of miles to access basic health care. But not everyone has the money, time to take off work, child care, or transportation to do that.

“____, I really care about access to safe, legal abortion, and I'm really scared now that states can ban abortion, and many are. Can we talk about it?”

“Hey, ___, I had an abortion. In my experience [insert story], but now I’m afraid that we won’t be able to access this essential health care for much longer.”

“___, I'm really worried about the future of abortion access. I have loved ones who have had abortions, and there are so many other people who

depend on this essential care. People like [abortion story] and me, will be affected by this. Can we talk about it?

Keep in mind:

Really listen to what they're saying. Don’t make assumptions or judgments on the person’s beliefs. Try to understand their point of view. Ask them questions like: “Tell me more about that” or “How does that make you feel?”

Find common ground with your shared values. How people feel about abortion is based on their values and their experiences with pregnancy, parenting, and planning their future.

Be clear about how you feel and what you want by using “I statements” and leaning into your own experience.

Agree to disagree. This doesn’t mean you agree with their perspective. You’re just protecting yourself by choosing which battles to fight.

Be proud of yourself for starting this conversation. It takes real courage. Each time you overcome your nervousness and do it, you’ll build your skills and confidence.

A FEW LAST TIPS

Always return the conversation to the real people involved — that's why your story matters so much. People value personal freedom and having control to make their own decisions for themselves. Abortion is a personal decision.

Being vulnerable builds trust with the person you are speaking to. Open up to them about why you support abortion, whether you’ve had one, supported someone through one, are a clinic escort, or believe access to abortion under any circumstance is important. Let them know why. Allowing yourself to open up allows genuine and honest conversation to flow. And, people will listen to their loved ones, even if their opinion is not swayed much or right away.

Don’t frame abortion as just a women's issue: this doesn't represent the trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people who can get pregnant. And everyone, regardless of gender, is harmed by abortion bans.

Don’t talk about abortion as “tragic” or a “hard decision.” That is not true for everyone and further stigmatizes abortion. Abortion is always a personal decision.

The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States (2018)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

When the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 1 issued its 1975 report on the public health impact of legalized abortion, the scientific evidence on the safety and health effects of legal abortion services was limited ( IOM, 1975 ). It had been only 2 years since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision had legalized abortion throughout the United States and nationwide data collection was just under way ( Cates et al., 2000 ; Kahn et al., 1971 ). Today, the available scientific evidence on abortion’s health effects is quite robust.

In 2016, six private foundations came together to ask the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a comprehensive review of the state of the science on the safety and quality of legal abortion services in the United States. The sponsors—The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Grove Foundation, The JPB Foundation, The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, Tara Health Foundation, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation—asked that the review focus on the eight research questions listed in Box 1-1 .

The Committee on Reproductive Health Services: Assessing the Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the U.S. was appointed in December 2016 to conduct the study and prepare this report. The committee included 13 individuals 2 with research or clinical experience in anesthesiology,

___________________

1 In March 2016, the IOM, the division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine focused on health and medicine, was renamed the Health and Medicine Division.

2 A 14th committee member participated for just the first 4 months of the study.

obstetrics and gynecology, nursing and midwifery, primary care, epidemiology of reproductive health, mental health, health care disparities, health care delivery and management, health law, health professional education and training, public health, quality assurance and assessment,

statistics and research methods, and women’s health policy. Brief biographies of committee members are provided in Appendix A .

This chapter describes the context for the study and the scope of the inquiry. It also presents the committee’s conceptual framework for conducting its review.

ABORTION CARE TODAY

Since the IOM first reviewed the health implications of national legalized abortion in 1975, there has been a plethora of related scientific research, including well-designed randomized controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews, and epidemiological studies examining abortion care. This research has focused on examining the relative safety of abortion methods and the appropriateness of methods for different clinical circumstances ( Ashok et al., 2004 ; Autry et al., 2002 ; Bartlett et al., 2004 ; Borgatta, 2011 ; Borkowski et al., 2015 ; Bryant et al., 2011 ; Cates et al., 1982 ; Chen and Creinin, 2015 ; Cleland et al., 2013 ; Frick et al., 2010 ; Gary and Harrison, 2006 ; Grimes et al., 2004 ; Grossman et al., 2008 , 2011 ; Ireland et al., 2015 ; Kelly et al., 2010 ; Kulier et al., 2011 ; Lohr et al., 2008 ; Low et al., 2012 ; Mauelshagen et al., 2009 ; Ngoc et al., 2011 ; Ohannessian et al., 2016 ; Peterson et al., 1983 ; Raymond et al., 2013 ; Roblin, 2014 ; Sonalkar et al., 2017 ; Upadhyay et al., 2015 ; White et al., 2015 ; Wildschut et al., 2011 ; Woodcock, 2016 ; Zane et al., 2015 ). With this growing body of research, earlier abortion methods have been refined, discontinued, and new approaches have been developed ( Chen and Creinin, 2015 ; Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ; Lichtenberg and Paul, 2013 ). For example, the use of dilation and sharp curettage is now considered obsolete in most cases because safer alternatives, such as aspiration methods, have been developed ( Edelman et al, 1974 ; Lean et al, 1976 ; RCOG, 2015 ). The use of abortion medications in the United States began in 2000 with the approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the drug mifepristone. In 2016, the FDA, citing extensive clinical research, updated the indications for mifepristone for medication abortion 3 up to 10 weeks’ (70 days’) gestation ( FDA, 2016 ; Woodcock, 2016 ).

Box 1-2 describes the abortion methods currently recommended by U.S. and international medical, nursing, and other health organizations that set professional standards for reproductive health care, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Society of Family Planning, the American College of Nurse-Midwifes, the National Abortion Federation (NAF), the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) (in the United Kingdom), and the World

3 The terms “medication abortion” and “medical abortion” are used interchangeably in the literature.

Health Organization ( ACNM, 2011 , 2016 ; ACOG, 2013 , 2014 ; Costescu et al., 2016 ; Lichtenberg and Paul, 2013 ; NAF, 2017 ; RCOG, 2011 ; WHO, 2014 ).

A Continuum of Care

The committee views abortion care as a continuum of services, as illustrated in Figure 1-1 . For purposes of this study, it begins when a woman, who has decided to terminate a pregnancy, contacts or visits a provider seeking an abortion. The first, preabortion phase of care includes an initial clinical assessment of the woman’s overall health (e.g., physical examination, pregnancy determination, weeks of gestation, and laboratory and other testing as needed); communication of information on the risks and benefits of alternative abortion procedures and pain management options; discussion of the patient’s preferences based on desired anesthesia and weeks of gestation; discussion of postabortion contraceptive options if desired; counseling

and referral to services (if needed); and final decision making and informed consent. The next phases in the continuum are the abortion procedure itself and postabortion care, including appropriate follow-up care and provision of contraceptives (for women who opt for them).

A Note on Terminology

Important clinical terms that describe pregnancy and abortion lack consistent definition. The committee tried to be as precise as possible to avoid misinterpreting or miscommunicating the research evidence, clinical practice guidelines, and other relevant sources of information with potentially significant clinical implications. Note that this report follows Grimes and Stuart’s (2010) recommendation that weeks’ gestation be quantified using cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3...) rather than ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd...). It is important to note, however, that these two numbering conventions are sometimes used interchangeably in the research literature despite having different meanings. For example, a woman who is 6 weeks pregnant has completed 6 weeks of pregnancy: she is in her 7th (not 6th) week of pregnancy.

This report also avoids using the term “trimester” where possible because completed weeks’ or days’ gestation is a more precise designation, and the clinical appropriateness of abortion methods does not align with specific trimesters.

Although the literature typically classifies the method of abortion as either “medical” or “surgical” abortion, the committee decided to specify methods more precisely by using the terminology defined in Box 1-2 . The term “surgical abortion” is often used by others as a catchall category that includes a variety of procedures, ranging from an aspiration to a dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure involving sharp surgical and other instrumentation as well as deeper levels of sedation. This report avoids describing abortion procedures as “surgical” so as to characterize a method more accurately as either an aspiration or D&E. As noted in Box 1-2 , the term “induction abortion” is used to distinguish later abortions that use a

medication regimen from medication abortions performed before 10 weeks’ gestation.

See Appendix B for a glossary of the technical terms used in this report.

Regulation of Abortion Services

Abortion is among the most regulated medical procedures in the nation ( Jones et al., 2010 ; Nash et al., 2017 ). While a comprehensive legal analysis of abortion regulation is beyond the scope of this report, the committee agreed that it should consider how abortion’s unique regulatory environment relates to the safety and quality of abortion care.

In addition to the federal, state, and local rules and policies governing all medical services, numerous abortion-specific federal 4 and state laws and regulations affect the delivery of abortion services. Table 1-1 lists the abortion-specific regulations by state. The regulations range from prescribing information to be provided to women when they are counseled and setting mandatory waiting periods between counseling and the abortion procedure to those that define the clinical qualifications of abortion providers, the types of procedures they are permitted to perform, and detailed facility standards for abortion services. In addition, many states place limitations on the circumstances under which private health insurance and Medicaid can be used to pay for abortions, limiting coverage to pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or posing a medical threat to the pregnant woman’s life. Other policies prevent facilities that receive state funds from providing abortion services 5 or place restrictions on the availability of services based on the gestation of the fetus that are narrower than those established under federal law ( Guttmacher Institute, 2017h ).

Trends and Demographics

National- and state-level abortion statistics come from two primary sources: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Abortion

4 Hyde Amendment (P.L. 94-439, 1976); Department of Defense Appropriations Act (P.L. 95-457, 1978); Peace Corps Provision and Foreign Assistance and Related Programs Appropriations Act (P.L. 95-481, 1978); Pregnancy Discrimination Act (P.L. 95-555, 1977); Department of the Treasury and Postal Service Appropriations Act (P.L. 98-151, 1983); FY1987 Continuing Resolution (P.L. 99-591, 1986); Dornan Amendment (P.L. 100-462, 1988); Partial-Birth Abortion Ban (P.L. 108-105, 2003); Weldon Amendment (P.L. 108-199, 2004); Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148 as amended by P.L. 111-152, 2010).

5 Personal communication, O. Cappello, Guttmacher Institute, August 4, 2017: AZ § 15-1630, GA § 20-2-773; KS § 65-6733 and § 76-3308; KY § 311.800; LA RS § 40:1299 and RS § 4 0.1061; MO § 188.210 and § 188.215; MS § 41-41-91; ND § 14-02.3-04; OH § 5101.57; OK 63 § 1-741.1; PA 18 § 3215; TX § 285.202.

TABLE 1-1 Overview of State Abortion-Specific Regulations That May Impact Safety and Quality, as of September 1, 2017

a Excludes laws or regulations permanently or temporarily enjoined pending a court decision.

b States have abortion-specific requirements generally following the established principles of informed consent.

c The content of informed consent materials is specified in state law or developed by the state department of health.

d In-person counseling is not required for women who live more than 100 miles from an abortion provider.

e Counseling requirement is waived if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or the patient is younger than 15.

f Maximum distance requirement does not apply to medication abortions.

g Some states also exempt women whose physical health is at severe risk and/or in cases of fetal impairment.

h Some states have exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, pregnancies that severely threaten women’s physical health or endanger their life, and/or in cases of fetal impairment.

SOURCES: Guttmacher Institute, 2017b , c , d , e , f , g , h , i , 2018b .

Surveillance System and the Guttmacher Institute’s Abortion Provider Census ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ; Jerman et al., 2016 ; Jones and Kavanaugh, 2011 ; Pazol et al., 2015 ). Both of these sources provide estimates of the number and rate of abortions, the use of different abortion methods, the characteristics of women who have abortions, and other related statistics. However, both sources have limitations.

The CDC system is a voluntary, state-reported system; 6 , 7 three states (California, Maryland, and New Hampshire) do not provide information ( CDC, 2017 ). The Guttmacher census, also voluntary, solicits information from all known abortion providers throughout the United States, including in the states that do not submit information to the CDC surveillance system. For 2014, the latest year reported by Guttmacher, 8 information was obtained directly from 58 percent of abortion providers, and data for nonrespondents were imputed ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ). The CDC’s latest report, for abortions in 2013, includes approximately 70 percent of the abortions reported by the Guttmacher Institute for that year ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ).

Both data collection systems report descriptive statistics on women who have abortions and the types of abortion provided, although they define demographic variables and procedure types differently. Nevertheless, in the aggregate, the trends in abortion utilization reported by the CDC and Guttmacher closely mirror each other—indicating decreasing rates of abortion, an increasing proportion of medication abortions, and the vast majority of abortions (90 percent) occurring by 13 weeks’ gestation (see Figures 1-2 and 1-3 ) ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ; Jones and Jerman, 2017a ). 9 Both data sources are used in this chapter’s brief review of trends in abortions and throughout the report.

Trends in the Number and Rate of Abortions

The number and rate of abortions have changed considerably during the decades following national legalization in 1973. In the immediate years after

6 In most states, hospitals, facilities, and physicians are required by law to report abortion data to a central health agency. These agencies submit the aggregate utilization data to the CDC ( Guttmacher Institute, 2018a ).

7 New York City and the District of Columbia also report data to the CDC.

8 Guttmacher researchers estimate that the census undercounts the number of abortions performed in the United States by about 5 percent (i.e., 51,725 abortions provided by 2,069 obstetrician/gynecologist [OB/GYN] physicians). The estimate is based on a survey of a random sample of OB/GYN physicians. The survey did not include other physician specialties and other types of clinicians.

9 A full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks.

national legalization, both the number and rate 10 of legal abortions steadily increased ( Bracken et al., 1982 ; Guttmacher Institute, 2017a ; Pazol et al., 2015 ; Strauss et al., 2007 ) (see Figure 1-2 ). The abortion rate peaked in the

10 Reported abortion rates are for females aged 15 to 44.

1980s, and the trend then reversed, a decline that has continued for more than three decades ( Guttmacher Institute, 2017a ; Jones and Kavanaugh, 2011 ; Pazol et al., 2015 ; Strauss et al., 2007 ). Between 1980 and 2014, the abortion rate among U.S. women fell by more than half, from 29.3 to 14.6 per 1,000 women ( Finer and Henshaw, 2003 ; Guttmacher Institute, 2017a ; Jones and Jerman, 2017a ) (see Figure 1-2 ). In 2014, the most recent year for which data are available, the aggregate number of abortions reached a low of 926,190 after peaking at nearly 1.6 million in 1990 ( Finer and Henshaw, 2003 ; Jones and Jerman, 2017a ). The reason for the decline is not fully understood but has been attributed to several factors, including the increasing use of contraceptives, especially long-acting methods (e.g., intrauterine devices and implants); historic declines in the rate of unintended pregnancy; and increasing numbers of state regulations resulting in limited access to abortion services ( Finer and Zolna, 2016 ; Jerman et al., 2017 ; Jones and Jerman, 2017a ; Kost, 2015 ; Strauss et al., 2007 ).

Weeks’ Gestation

Length of gestation—measured as the amount of time since the first day of the last menstrual period—is the primary factor in deciding what abortion procedure is most appropriate ( ACOG, 2014 ). Since national legalization, most abortions in the United States have been performed in early pregnancy (≤13 weeks) ( Cates et al., 2000 ; CDC, 1983 ; Elam-Evans et al., 2003 ; Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ; Jones and Jerman, 2017a ; Koonin and Smith, 1993 ; Lawson et al., 1989 ; Pazol et al., 2015 ; Strauss et al., 2007 ). CDC surveillance reports indicate that since at least 1992 (when detailed data on early abortions were first collected), the vast majority of abortions in the United States were early-gestation procedures ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ; Strauss et al., 2007 ); this was the case for approximately 92 percent of all abortions in 2013 ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ). With such technological advances as highly sensitive pregnancy tests and medication abortion, procedures are being performed at increasingly earlier gestational stages. According to the CDC, the percentage of early abortions performed ≤6 weeks’ gestation increased by 16 percent from 2004 to 2013 ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ); in 2013, 38 percent of early abortions occurred ≤6 weeks ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ). The proportion of early-gestation abortions occurring ≤6 weeks is expected to increase even further as the use of medication abortions becomes more widespread ( Jones and Boonstra, 2016 ; Pazol et al., 2012 ).

Figure 1-3 shows the proportion of abortions in nonhospital settings by weeks’ gestation in 2014 ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ).

Abortion Methods

Aspiration is the abortion method most commonly used in the United States, accounting for almost 68 percent of all abortions performed in 2013 ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ). 11 Its use, however, is likely to decline as the use of medication abortion increases. The percentage of abortions performed by the medication method rose an estimated 110 percent between 2004 and 2013, from 10.6 to 22.3 percent ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ). In 2014, approximately 45 percent of abortions performed up to 9 weeks’ gestation were medication abortions, up from 36 percent in 2011 ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ).

Fewer than 9 percent of abortions are performed after 13 weeks’ gestation; most of these are D&E procedures ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ). Induction abortion is the most infrequently used of all abortion methods, accounting for approximately 2 percent of all abortions at 14 weeks’ gestation or later in 2013 ( Jatlaoui et al., 2016 ).

Characteristics of Women Who Have Abortions

The most detailed sociodemographic statistics on women who have had an abortion in the United States are provided by the Guttmacher Institute’s Abortion Patient Survey. Respondents to the 2014/2015 survey included more than 8,000 women who had had an abortion in 1 of 87 outpatient (nonhospital) facilities across the United States in 2014 ( Jerman et al., 2016 ; Jones and Jerman, 2017b ). 12 Table 1-2 provides selected findings from this survey. Although women who had an abortion in a hospital setting are excluded from these statistics, the data represent an estimated 95 percent of all abortions provided (see Figure 1-3 ).

The Guttmacher survey found that most women who had had an abortion were under age 30 (72 percent) and were unmarried (86 percent) ( Jones and Jerman, 2017b ). Women seeking an abortion were far more likely to be poor or low-income: the household income of 49 percent was below the federal poverty level (FPL), and that of 26 percent was 100 to 199 percent of the FPL ( Jerman et al., 2016 ). In comparison, the

11 CDC surveillance reports use the catchall category of “curettage” to refer to nonmedical abortion methods. The committee assumed that the CDC’s curettage estimates before 13 weeks’ gestation refer to aspiration procedures and that its curettage estimates after 13 weeks’ gestation referred to D&E procedures.

12 Participating facilities were randomly selected and excluded hospitals. All other types of facilities were included if they had provided at least 30 abortions in 2011 ( Jerman et al., 2016 ). Jerman and colleagues report that logistical challenges precluded including hospital patients in the survey. The researchers believe that the exclusion of hospitals did not bias the survey sample, noting that hospitals accounted for only 4 percent of all abortions in 2011.

TABLE 1-2 Characteristics of Women Who Had an Abortion in an Outpatient Setting in 2014, by Percent

NOTE: Percentages may not sum to 100 because of rounding.

SOURCES: (a) Jones and Jerman, 2017b (n = 8,098); (b) Jerman et al., 2016 (n = 8,380).

corresponding percentages among all women aged 15 to 49 are 16 and 18 percent. 13 Women who had had an abortion were also more likely to be women of color 14 (61.0 percent); overall, half of women who had had an abortion were either black (24.8 percent) or Hispanic (24.5 percent) ( Jones and Jerman, 2017b ). This distribution is similar to the racial and ethnic distribution of women with household income below 200 percent of the FPL, 49 percent of whom are either black (20 percent) or Hispanic (29 percent). 15 Poor women and women of color are also more likely than others to experience an unintended pregnancy ( Finer and Henshaw, 2006 ; Finer et al., 2006 ; Jones and Kavanaugh, 2011 ).

Many women who have an abortion have previously experienced pregnancy or childbirth. Among respondents to the Guttmacher survey, 59.3 percent had given birth at least once, and 44.8 percent had had a prior abortion ( Jerman et al., 2016 ; Jones and Jerman, 2017b ).

While precise estimates of health insurance coverage of abortion are not available, numerous regulations limit coverage. As noted in Table 1-1 , 33 states prohibit public payers from paying for abortions and other states have laws that either prohibit health insurance exchange plans (25 states) or private insurance plans (11 states) sold in the state from covering or paying for abortions, with few exceptions. 16 In the Guttmacher survey, only 14 percent of respondents had paid for the procedure using private insurance coverage, and despite the disproportionately high rate of poverty and low income among those who had had an abortion, only 22 percent reported that Medicaid was the method of payment for their abortion. In 2015, 39 percent of the 25 million women lived in households that earned less than 200 percent of the FPL in the United States were enrolled in Medicaid, and 36 percent had private insurance ( Ranji et al., 2017 ).

Number of Clinics Providing Abortion Care

As noted earlier, the vast majority of abortions are performed in nonhospital settings—either an abortion clinic (59 percent) or a clinic offering a variety of medical services (36 percent) ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ) (see Figure 1-4 ). Although hospitals account for almost 40 percent of facilities offering abortion care, they provide less than 5 percent of abortions overall.

13 Calculation by the committee based on estimates from Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) .

14 Includes all nonwhite race and ethnicity categories in Table 1-2 . Data were collected via self-administered questionnaire ( Jones and Jerman, 2017b ).

15 Calculation by the committee based on estimates from Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) .

16 Some states have exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, pregnancies that endanger the woman’s life or severely threaten her health, and in cases of fetal impairment.

The overall number of nonhospital facilities providing abortions—especially specialty abortion clinics—is declining. The greatest proportional decline is in states that have enacted abortion-specific regulations ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ). In 2014, there were 272 abortion clinics in the United States, 17 percent fewer than in 2011. The greatest decline (26 percent) was among large clinics with annual caseloads of 1,000–4,999 patients and clinics in the Midwest (22 percent) and the South (13 percent). In 2014, approximately 39 percent of U.S. women aged 15 to 44 resided in a U.S. county without an abortion provider (90 percent of counties overall) ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ). Twenty-five states have five or fewer abortion clinics; five states have one abortion clinic ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ). A recent analysis 17 by Guttmacher evaluated geographic disparities in access to abortion by calculating the distance between women of reproductive age (15 to 44) and the nearest abortion-providing facility in 2014 ( Bearak et al., 2017 ). Figure 1-5 highlights the median distance to the nearest facility by county.

17 The analysis was limited to facilities that provided at least 400 abortions per year and those affiliated with Planned Parenthood that performed at least 1 abortion during the period of analysis.

The majority of facilities offer early medication and aspiration abortions. In 2014, 87 percent of nonhospital facilities provided early medication abortions; 23 percent of all nonhospital facilities offered this type of abortion ( Jones and Jerman, 2017a ). Fewer facilities offer later-gestation procedures, and availability decreases as gestation increases. In 2012, 95 percent of all abortion facilities offered abortions at 8 weeks’ gestation, 72 percent at 12 weeks’ gestation, 34 percent at 20 weeks’ gestation, and 16 percent at 24 weeks’ gestation ( Jerman and Jones, 2014 ).

STUDY APPROACH

Conceptual framework.

The committee’s approach to this study built on two foundational developments in the understanding and evaluation of the quality of health

care services: Donabedian’s (1980) structure-process-outcome framework and the IOM’s (2001) six dimensions of quality health care. Figure 1-6 illustrates the committee’s adaptation of these concepts for this study’s assessment of abortion care in the United States.

Structure-Process-Outcome Framework

In seminal work published almost 40 years ago, Donabedian (1980) proposed that the quality of health care be assessed by examining its structure, process, and outcomes ( Donabedian, 1980 ):

Structure refers to organizational factors that may create the potential for good quality. In abortion care, such structural factors as the availability of trained staff and the characteristics of the clinical setting may ensure—or inhibit—the capacity for quality.
Process refers to what is done to and for the patient. Its assessment assumes that the services patients receive should be evidence based and correlated with patients’ desired outcomes—for example, an early and complete abortion for women who wish to terminate an unintended pregnancy.
Outcomes are the end results of care—the effects of the intervention on the health and well-being of the patient. Does the procedure achieve its objective? Does it lead to serious health risks in the short or long term?

Six Dimensions of Health Care Quality

The landmark IOM report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century ( IOM, 2001 ) identifies six dimensions of health care quality—safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity. The articulation of these six dimensions has guided public and private efforts to improve U.S. health care delivery at the local, state, and national levels since that report was published ( AHRQ, 2016 ).

In addition, as with other health care services, women should expect that the abortion care they receive meets well-established standards for objectivity, transparency, and scientific rigor ( IOM, 2011a , b ).

Two of the IOM’s six dimensions—safety and effectiveness—are particularly salient to the present study. Assessing both involves making relative judgments. There are no universally agreed-upon thresholds for defining care as “safe” versus “unsafe” or “effective” versus “not effective,” and decisions about safety and effectiveness have a great deal to do with the context of the clinical scenario. Thus, the committee’s frame of reference for evaluating safety, effectiveness, and other quality domains is of necessity a

relative one—one that entails not only comparing the alternative abortion methods but also comparing these methods with other health care services and with risks associated with not achieving the desired outcome.

Safety—avoiding injury to patients—is often assessed by measuring the incidence and severity of complications and other adverse events associated with receiving a specific procedure. If infrequent, a complication may be characterized as “rare”—a term that lacks consistent definition. In this report, “rare” is used to describe outcomes that affect fewer than 1 percent of patients. Complications are considered “serious” if they result in a blood transfusion, surgery, or hospitalization.

Note also that the term “effectiveness” is used differently in this report depending on the context. As noted in Box 1-3 , effectiveness as an attribute of quality refers to providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and overuse, respectively). Elsewhere in this report, effectiveness denotes the clinical effectiveness of a procedure, that

is, the successful completion of an abortion without the need for a follow-up aspiration.

Finding and Assessing the Evidence

The committee deliberated during four in-person meetings and numerous teleconferences between January 2017 and December 2017. On March 24, 2017, the committee hosted a public workshop at the Keck Center of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC. The workshop included presentations from three speakers on topics related to facility standards and the safety of outpatient procedures. Appendix C contains the workshop agenda.

Several committee workgroups were formed to find and assess the quality of the available evidence and to draft summary materials for the full committee’s review. The workgroups conducted in-depth reviews of the epidemiology of abortions, including rates of complications and mortality, the safety and effectiveness of alternative abortion methods, professional standards and methods for performing all aspects of abortion care (as described in Figure 1-1 ), the short- and long-term physical and mental health effects of having an abortion; and the safety and quality implications of abortion-specific regulations on abortion.

The committee focused on finding reliable, scientific information reflecting contemporary U.S. abortion practices. An extensive body of research on abortion has been conducted outside the United States. A substantial proportion of this literature concerns the delivery of abortion care in countries where socioeconomic conditions, culture, population health, health care resources, and/or the health care system are markedly different from their U.S. counterparts. Studies from other countries were excluded from this review if the committee judged those factors to be relevant to the health outcomes being assessed.

The committee considered evidence from randomized controlled trials comparing two or more approaches to abortion care; systematic reviews; meta-analyses; retrospective cohort studies, case control studies, and other types of observational studies; and patient and provider surveys (see Box 1-4 ).

An extensive literature documents the biases common in published research on the effectiveness of health care services ( Altman et al., 2001 ; Glasziou et al., 2008 ; Hopewell et al., 2008 ; Ioannidis et al., 2004 ; IOM, 2011a , b ; Plint et al., 2006 ; Sackett, 1979 ; von Elm et al., 2007 ). Thus, the committee prioritized the available research according to conventional principles of evidence-based medicine intended to reduce the risk of bias in a study’s conclusions, such as how subjects were allocated to different types of abortion care, the comparability of study populations, controls

for confounding factors, how outcome assessments were conducted, the completeness of outcome reporting, the representativeness of the study population compared with the general U.S. population, and the degree to which statistical analyses helped reduce bias ( IOM, 2011b ). Applying these principles is particularly important with respect to understanding abortion’s

long-term health effects, an area in which the relevant literature is vulnerable to bias (as discussed in Chapter 4 ).

The committee’s literature search strategy is described in Appendix D .

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

Chapter 2 of this report describes the continuum of abortion care including current abortion methods (question 1 in the committee’s statement of task [ Box 1-1 ]); reviews the evidence on factors affecting their safety and quality, including expected side effects and possible complications (questions 2 and 3), necessary safeguards to manage medical emergencies (question 6), and provision of pain management (question 7); and presents the evidence on the types of facilities or facility factors necessary to provide safe and effective abortion care (question 4).

Chapter 3 summarizes the clinical skills that are integral to safe and high-quality abortion care according to the recommendations of leading national professional organizations and abortion training curricula (question 5).

Chapter 4 reviews research examining the long-term health effects of undergoing an abortion (question 2).

Finally, Chapter 5 presents the committee’s conclusions regarding the findings presented in the previous chapters, responding to each of the questions posed in the statement of task. Findings are statements of scientific evidence. The report’s conclusions are the committee’s inferences, interpretations, or generalizations drawn from the evidence.

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Abortion is a legal medical procedure that has been provided to millions of American women. Since the Institute of Medicine first reviewed the health implications of national legalized abortion in 1975, there has been a plethora of related scientific research, including well-designed randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews, and epidemiological studies examining abortion care. This research has focused on examining the relative safety of abortion methods and the appropriateness of methods for different clinical circumstances. With this growing body of research, earlier abortion methods have been refined, discontinued, and new approaches have been developed.

The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States offers a comprehensive review of the current state of the science related to the provision of safe, high-quality abortion services in the United States. This report considers 8 research questions and presents conclusions, including gaps in research.

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Guest Essay

The Supreme Court Got It Wrong: Abortion Is Not Settled Law

In an black-and-white photo illustration, nine abortion pills are arranged on a grid.

By Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw

Ms. Murray is a law professor at New York University. Ms. Shaw is a contributing Opinion writer.

In his majority opinion in the case overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito insisted that the high court was finally settling the vexed abortion debate by returning the “authority to regulate abortion” to the “people and their elected representatives.”

Despite these assurances, less than two years after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, abortion is back at the Supreme Court. In the next month, the justices will hear arguments in two high-stakes cases that may shape the future of access to medication abortion and to lifesaving care for pregnancy emergencies. These cases make clear that Dobbs did not settle the question of abortion in America — instead, it generated a new slate of questions. One of those questions involves the interaction of existing legal rules with the concept of fetal personhood — the view, held by many in the anti-abortion movement, that a fetus is a person entitled to the same rights and protections as any other person.

The first case , scheduled for argument on Tuesday, F.D.A. v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, is a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s protocols for approving and regulating mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for medication abortions. An anti-abortion physicians’ group argues that the F.D.A. acted unlawfully when it relaxed existing restrictions on the use and distribution of mifepristone in 2016 and 2021. In 2016, the agency implemented changes that allowed the use of mifepristone up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, rather than seven; reduced the number of required in-person visits for dispensing the drug from three to one; and allowed the drug to be prescribed by individuals like nurse practitioners. In 2021, it eliminated the in-person visit requirement, clearing the way for the drug to be dispensed by mail. The physicians’ group has urged the court to throw out those regulations and reinstate the previous, more restrictive regulations surrounding the drug — a ruling that could affect access to the drug in every state, regardless of the state’s abortion politics.

The second case, scheduled for argument on April 24, involves the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA ), which requires federally funded hospitals to provide patients, including pregnant patients, with stabilizing care or transfer to a hospital that can provide such care. At issue is the law’s interaction with state laws that severely restrict abortion, like an Idaho law that bans abortion except in cases of rape or incest and circumstances where abortion is “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”

Although the Idaho law limits the provision of abortion care to circumstances where death is imminent, the federal government argues that under EMTALA and basic principles of federal supremacy, pregnant patients experiencing emergencies at federally funded hospitals in Idaho are entitled to abortion care, even if they are not in danger of imminent death.

These cases may be framed in the technical jargon of administrative law and federal pre-emption doctrine, but both cases involve incredibly high-stakes issues for the lives and health of pregnant persons — and offer the court an opportunity to shape the landscape of abortion access in the post-Roe era.

These two cases may also give the court a chance to seed new ground for fetal personhood. Woven throughout both cases are arguments that gesture toward the view that a fetus is a person.

If that is the case, the legal rules that would typically hold sway in these cases might not apply. If these questions must account for the rights and entitlements of the fetus, the entire calculus is upended.

In this new scenario, the issue is not simply whether EMTALA’s protections for pregnant patients pre-empt Idaho’s abortion ban, but rather which set of interests — the patient’s or the fetus’s — should be prioritized in the contest between state and federal law. Likewise, the analysis of F.D.A. regulatory protocols is entirely different if one of the arguments is that the drug to be regulated may be used to end a life.

Neither case presents the justices with a clear opportunity to endorse the notion of fetal personhood — but such claims are lurking beneath the surface. The Idaho abortion ban is called the Defense of Life Act, and in its first bill introduced in 2024, the Idaho Legislature proposed replacing the term “fetus” with “preborn child” in existing Idaho law. In its briefs before the court, Idaho continues to beat the drum of fetal personhood, insisting that EMTALA protects the unborn — rather than pregnant women who need abortions during health emergencies.

According to the state, nothing in EMTALA imposes an obligation to provide stabilizing abortion care for pregnant women. Rather, the law “actually requires stabilizing treatment for the unborn children of pregnant women.” In the mifepristone case, advocates referred to fetuses as “unborn children,” while the district judge in Texas who invalidated F.D.A. approval of the drug described it as one that “starves the unborn human until death.”

Fetal personhood language is in ascent throughout the country. In a recent decision , the Alabama Supreme Court allowed a wrongful-death suit for the destruction of frozen embryos intended for in vitro fertilization, or I.V.F. — embryos that the court characterized as “extrauterine children.”

Less discussed but as worrisome is a recent oral argument at the Florida Supreme Court concerning a proposed ballot initiative intended to enshrine a right to reproductive freedom in the state’s Constitution. In considering the proposed initiative, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court repeatedly peppered Nathan Forrester, the senior deputy solicitor general who was representing the state, with questions about whether the state recognized the fetus as a person under the Florida Constitution. The point was plain: If the fetus was a person, then the proposed ballot initiative, and its protections for reproductive rights, would change the fetus’s rights under the law, raising constitutional questions.

As these cases make clear, the drive toward fetal personhood goes beyond simply recasting abortion as homicide. If the fetus is a person, any act that involves reproduction may implicate fetal rights. Fetal personhood thus has strong potential to raise questions about access to abortion, contraception and various forms of assisted reproductive technology, including I.V.F.

In response to the shifting landscape of reproductive rights, President Biden has pledged to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.” Roe and its successor, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, were far from perfect; they afforded states significant leeway to impose onerous restrictions on abortion, making meaningful access an empty promise for many women and families of limited means. But the two decisions reflected a constitutional vision that, at least in theory, protected the liberty to make certain intimate choices — including choices surrounding if, when and how to become a parent.

Under the logic of Roe and Casey, the enforceability of EMTALA, the F.D.A.’s power to regulate mifepristone and access to I.V.F. weren’t in question. But in the post-Dobbs landscape, all bets are off. We no longer live in a world in which a shared conception of constitutional liberty makes a ban on I.V.F. or certain forms of contraception beyond the pale.

Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University and a host of the Supreme Court podcast “ Strict Scrutiny ,” is a co-author of “ The Trump Indictments : The Historic Charging Documents With Commentary.”

Kate Shaw is a contributing Opinion writer, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and a host of the Supreme Court podcast “Strict Scrutiny.” She served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens and Judge Richard Posner.

IMAGES

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How to Talk About Abortion
Then talk about the values you both share, like love, fairness, compassion, and justice. You can say something like "I know you care about others, and so do I. That's why I believe decisions about whether to choose adoption, end a pregnancy, or raise a child must be left to each person — not to politicians, who can't know each person ...
2.6: The Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis
12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion Nathan Nobis and Kristina Grob 32. 1 Introduction . We argue that abortion should not be illegal because most abortions are not morally wrong (and so they are not seriously or extremely wrong).So, states are making bad moral and legal moves, to say the least, in trying to criminalize abortions, at least when they are done early in pregnancy ...
The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of
It is required reading for anyone seriously interested in the abortion issue. It is a good introduction for anyone who wishes to read a serious and thoughtful account of all of the various serious philosophical views that support the right to abortion. It deserves careful study. I certainly would not endorse every single argument in the book.
5.1: Arguments Against Abortion
5.1.5 Abortion prevents fetuses from experiencing their valuable futures. We will begin with arguments for the conclusion that abortion is generally wrong, perhaps nearly always wrong. These can be seen as reasons to believe fetuses have the "right to life" or are otherwise seriously wrong to kill.
Five paragraph essay on abortion
Five paragraph essay on abortion. This essay discusses three issues that revolve around abortion in order to help the reader better understand abortion issues in general. This is not a comprehensive list of all the issues surrounding abortion, but does explain three issues and then knits them together in the conclusion to show that the abortion ...
Abortion Argumentative Essay
However, allowing and legalizing abortion is a way of encouraging social immorality. Morality is a principle concerning distinguishing between right and wrong things or differentiating between good and bad. It is clear and accurate to say that abortion is an immoral act. Abortion is a way of terminating the life of an innocent creature.
Abortion Essay Introduction
Abortion Introduction Essay. Introduction Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability (Statistic Brain). Abortions have become one of the most common ways to end pregnancy. Three out of ten women in the United States have an abortion by the time they are ...
BBC
Introduction. The abortion debate deals with the rights and wrongs of deliberately ending a pregnancy before normal childbirth, killing the foetus in the process. Abortion is a very painful topic ...
Book Review: The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and
He divides the chapter into two lengthy sections separated by a shorter one. The first major section discusses "Hard Cases for Critics of Abortion" (178-191), and these include the following: difficult circumstances, fetal deformity, abortion for the child's good, cases of rape and incest, abortion to save the mother's life.
Introduction
1.2.3. Equity, inclusivity and people-centred care. The needs of all individuals with respect to abortion are recognized and acknowledged in this guidance. A human rights approach that advances gender equality is essential and must be applied in all contexts providing services to people seeking health care.
Argumentative Essay on Abortion
The conclusion paragraph of this abortion essay constitutes of three main parts. The first part restates the main premises: The decision to terminate a pregnancy should generally lie with pregnant women. The second part presents 1 - 2 sentences which summarizes the arguments that support my thesis.
What the data says about abortion in the U.S
The CDC says that in 2021, there were 11.6 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. (That figure excludes data from California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.) Like Guttmacher's data, the CDC's figures also suggest a general decline in the abortion rate over time.
Introductory Paragraph On Abortion
455 Words. 2 Pages. Open Document. Introductory Paragraph Abortion shouldn't be something that someone should have to think about. It should be a no brainer answer to the child's parents. One should not ever have to make the decision of if they want a child to live or not to live. Society has misjudged this cruel topic, overthought this ...
How To Talk About Abortion
Step 3 - Plan your audience. We can change hearts and minds by speaking with people we know and trust. Here are a few different groups to consider speaking with about abortion: Family. Friends. Coworkers. Members of a club/volunteer team/church. Social media followers/mutuals. Fitness groups.
1 Introduction
1 Introduction. When the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 1 issued its 1975 report on the public health impact of legalized abortion, the scientific evidence on the safety and health effects of legal abortion services was limited ().It had been only 2 years since the landmark Roe v.Wade decision had legalized abortion throughout the United States and nationwide data collection was just under way ...
Why Abortion Is Back at the Supreme Court
An anti-abortion physicians' group argues that the F.D.A. acted unlawfully when it relaxed existing restrictions on the use and distribution of mifepristone in 2016 and 2021.