Abortion: world perspectives in the mid-1980s.

Abstract

Abortion is recognized as an essential component of any successful population policy and thus far no country intent on decreasing its rate of population growth has been able to ignore it. Focus in this discussion is on the legal status of therapeutic abortion in Western and Eastern Europe the US and Canada Asia Africa and Latin America. In Western Europe the thrust of legislation has been towards liberalization. The Nordic nations took the 1st definitive steps in this direction long before the outbreak of World War II. The most recent Danish statute of the 1973 allows abortion on request during the first 3 months of pregnancy for all women irrespective of age or parity. The Swedish law of 1975 guarantees the womans right in the absence of a specific medical contraindication to have an induced abortion up to the 18th week of gestation. Norway and Finland further liberalized their laws in 1979. A liberalizing abortion law was introduced in the UK in 1967. France liberalized its abortion law in 1975 and the Dutch government passed a bill in 1981 authorizing abortion at the request of the pregnant woman. A liberal abortion law was introduced in the USSR soon after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1971. In the 1930s the statute became more restrictive but 2 decades later the Soviet government in common with most other Eastern European countries repealed it and reintroduced liberal practice. Yugoslavia is the only country in Eastern Europe in which a womans free decision on abortion is enshrined in the constitution. Liberalization of the US abortion law was given considerable impetus in 1970 when Alaska Hawaii and New York State authorized what was tantamount to abortion on request. Then in 1973 the Supreme Court handed down its decision that during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy a woman should decide in consultation with her doctor whether or not an abortion should be performed. Yet the overall response of the US health services has been patchy and by 1982 the joint federal/state medical assistance to pay for abortions had been gradually whittled down with the result that only 15 states and the District of Columbia were providing a reasonable service. In Canada a restrictive law was operating until 1969 after which it was moderately liberalized. The new statute permitted abortion in hospitals with the approval of a committee of at least 3 physicians. India and China have had a population policy in operation for several years with abortion as an important component. Elsewhere in Asia the pattern of abortion varies greatly. Restrictive laws against abortion operate throughout Africa. The only major exception is Tunisia which incorporated a social clause in 1965. In most of Latin America strong religious opposition to abortion exists and the official stance of many of the governments remain staunchly pronatalist but the incidence of illegal abortion is very high.