Around 40% of women of reproductive age live where abortion is highly restricted (e.g. to save a woman's life, or protect her physical or mental health). Most of these women are in the developing world.

There is strong evidence that legal restrictions do not stop women from having abortions, driving them instead to seek unsafe and illegal procedures which risk their lives.

US

In the US abortion is broadly legal but can be restricted by individual states. However, 87% of US counties have no safe abortion services

India

Even where abortion is legal, many women resort to unsafe abortion because of cost or lack of access to services. In India, where abortion has been legal for decades, three unsafe abortions take place for every two safe procedures

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Laws either explicitly permit abortion to be performed when a pregnancy threatens a woman's life or allow it under the general criminal law principle of necessity

*

Countries in this category allow abortion based on at least one of the following four categories: to preserve physical health, to preserve mental health, in case of rape or incest or foetal impairment