What are the abortion laws in other countries?

[skipos]

Any info would be appreciated.

[liberalpragmatist]

1. Banned in Latin America, restricted in most of Europe

Some European countries, notably Ireland, make illegal all abortions except for rape or incest. Most have unrestricted abortion rights for the first trimester, but most ban abortions in the third trimester exc. for rape or incest and many ban them in the 2nd as well.

I don't know the specifics, but I believe they're very freely available in Japan, where the rates of abortion are very high. So I would guess Japan has very few restrictions on abortion.

[Warpy]

2. I know the statistics in countries where it's banned are appalling

because where abortion is illegal, the largest cause of death for women of childbearing age is illegal abortion.

Think about it. Banning abortion only bans the safe and regulated abortions. Antiabortion laws kill women. That is the bottom line.

[liberalpragmatist]

3. Yeah - I've read the same thing

Abortion in Latin America is an appalling thing.

[-..__...]

4. Ireland used to prohibit traveling to another country for the proceedure.

However,IIRC, that law was repealed some time ago.

[Princess Turandot]

5. This might help..

The UN has detailed country profiles on the page; the Harvard Law site has copies of the relevant laws. The UN report appears to be from 2002 and has a lot of detailed info on historical context and population control stuff. From what I recall from looking at these sites before, several European laws after the first trimester are more restrictive than US law, in terms of 'abortion on demand'.




http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/

http://annualreview.law.harvard.edu/annual_review.htm (click on abortion laws.)

Wikipedia has a chart at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law

Hope this helps. If you want to investigate more links, Google the words: international law abortion ,
without quotes.

[skipos]

6. Thanks alot! nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. In Japan, it's essentially on demand

The abortion laws were liberalized after World War II when people were starving in the rubble and couldn't afford to feed more children and didn't have access to contraception.

The law doesn't say that it's on demand, but in practice, it is.

[skipos]

8. Here is a map of the world and their abortion laws. Very good info.

Yikes! I didn't know this map was so huge. Sorry.

[0007]

9. When did India change over? When I was there in 1989 I was

under the empression that abortion was encouraged to keep the birth rate down in the exploding population problem.

[-..__...]

11. Just a guess...

There's a growing gender gap between male births .vs female births.
It wasn't uncommon then (nor is it now), to abort a female fetus more often than a male fetus.

Not that India's current abortion legislation has really changed anything; it's more like "don't ask, don't tell... look the other way".

[CottonBear]

10. Here's a link to the Women on Waves website w/ lots of info:

http://www.womenonwaves.org/index.php