This country is an exception to the Arab states in that it legalised abortion in 1965 for women with five living children, and amended the law in 1973 to allow abortion on request for all women during the first trimester

Abortion in Nigeria is illegal and carries a heavy jail sentence— up to 14 years imprisonment— unless it is performed to save the life of the pregnant woman. Yet an estimated one million abortions are carried out in Nigeria each year, and illegal abortion is responsible for 50% of maternal deaths, particularly in adolescents and young women. There is very little support in the country for making abortion legal on request. Therefore, although the Nigerian Medical Association wants abortion legalized, change is not expected in the near future. Vocal opposition comes from religious leaders, as well as anti-abortion protestors who claim that family planning in all its forms is un-African, and legalized abortion an obstacle to the development of Africa.

The law in Kenya remains restrictive, allowing abortion only when the woman’s life is in danger. Imprisonment for 14 years is mandated for anyone found guilty of aiding a woman to procure an illegal abortion. Incomplete abortion accounts for over 50 per cent of all gynaecological admissions and over 25 per cent of all hospital admissions in Kenya.

Zambia became the first sub-Saharan African nation to liberalize abortion. Since 1972, abortion has been legal for health and socio-economic reasons through the 12th week of pregnancy. However, a legal abortion must be performed in a hospital, and the woman must have the signatures of three physicians (one of them a specialist)

In the 1960’s a push to legalise abortion came from the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Bar Association, women’s groups, some churches, social welfare agencies, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the Humanist Fellowship of Montreal. Estimates of the number of illegal abortions being performed in Canada during this time range from 35,000 to 120,000 annually, similar to the number of legal abortions currently performed. In 1969 changes in the criminal law legalised certain abortions performed by a qualified physician in an approved hospital. Under section 251 of the Criminal Code, a therapeutic abortion committee of at least three doctors was required to decide whether the continuation of the pregnancy 'would or would be likely to endanger the woman’s life or health'. The woman did not meet the doctors who sat on the committee and had no right to appeal the decision if her application was rejected. However, these committees were not enforced. In addition, section 251 did not define 'health'. Since therapeutic abortion committees interpreted 'health' differently, the reasons for which women obtained abortions varied widely. Section 251 remained in place until 1988.

Until the mid-19th century, first trimester abortions were legal in the United States under common law. By 1900, abortion was prohibited by law throughout the U.S. unless two or more physicians agreed that the procedure was necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant women. By the late 1960’s, state legislatures began to reconsider the legalisation of abortion in response to calls from national medical, legal, and social welfare organisations. By 1973, 17 states had liberalized their abortion laws.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, recognized abortion as a right under the United States Constitution. Specifically, the Court ruled that during the first trimester of pregnancy the state cannot bar any woman from obtaining an abortion from a licensed physician. During the second trimester, the state can regulate the abortion procedure only to protect the woman’s health. In the third trimester the state may regulate to protect foetal life, but not at the expense of the woman’s life or health. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the right to abortion when the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s abortion law was challenged. In this important decision, called Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court found that requirements of a 24-hour delay before an abortion, counselling by doctors against abortion, consent from parents of minors, and reporting requirements did not constitute an undue burden on women seeking to end an unwanted pregnancy. Such provisions were therefore constitutional, the Court held.

In Casey, the Supreme Court fell one vote short of actually overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. As for the 'abortion pill' RU 486, the Food and Drug Administration issued an import ban against RU 486 in 1989.

The Clinton administration, however, also immediately began encouraging the manufacturer of the 'abortion pill' RU 486 to make the drug available in the U.S. This encouragement resulted in the May, 1994 agreement by the company, Roussel Uclaf, to donate its patents on RU 486 to the Population Council, a non-profit organization that began testing the pill on 2,000 American women at 12 sites.

President Clinton appointed to key positions people who are unabashedly pro-choice on abortion, including Dr. M. Jocelyn Elders as U.S. Surgeon General and Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Clinton also quickly overturned the 'Mexico City Policy', a Reagan administration prohibition on aid to international family planning programs that support abortion. At the 1994 UN population conference in Cairo, the U.S. government supported improved access to contraception and safe abortion in the developing world, despite the Vatican’s condemnation. On May 12, 1994, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) was passed by the U.S. Senate. This law virtually makes counselling or protesting at abortion clinics a federal crime and imposes prison terms and fines on anti-abortion protesters. Clinton was also responsible for vetoing an act that would have banned the partial-birth abortion procedure.

In Cuba, elective abortions have been available in government hospitals since the mid-1960’s. Women of all ages may obtain abortions on request for up to 10 weeks’ gestation; later abortions require approval.

Pro-Life Groups:

Cuba is unique in that it is the one Latin American country where there is no “right to life” movement

Women and physicians face prison terms of one to four years for illegal abortions. In July of 1994, Argentina’s President Carlos Menem proposed a constitutional amendment which would completely outlaw abortion, but it was not adopted.

In order to reduce the rate of population growth, abortions have been legal on request up to the end of the 10th week of pregnancy since 1983. Married women need their husband’s consent. In practice, about 500,000 abortions are performed each year, although the scarcity of the trained gynaecological specialists required by the law limits access, especially in rural Turkey.

In 1991, a new penal code decreased the penalty to a maximum of 2 years’ imprisonment (from four) when a woman self-aborts or consents to an abortion.

All criminal abortion codes were originally based on English law of the mid-19th century.

In the other states, common law precedents have allowed practitioners to carry out legal abortions where they decide it is necessary for the health of the pregnant woman.

But abortion remains in various criminal codes. In April of 1994, the New South Wales Supreme Court decided that, according to the Crimes Act of 1900, abortion is in fact illegal unless the pregnancy poses a serious medical threat to the woman.

Since 1957, China has had one of the most open abortion policies in the world. Abortion is free upon the request of the woman. In 1979, because of concerns over the country's high rate of population growth, the Chinese government began implementing its harsh "one-child policy". The one-child policy mandates that couples have no more than one child in urban areas, while rural families may have up to two children in very limited circumstances.

The 1994 law’s eugenics provisions aimed at limiting what the government referred to as “inferior” births provoked international condemnation. The controversial provisions require people with a “serious hereditary disease” to give up childbearing, and doctors to instruct pregnant women to abort in cases of serious foetal abnormalities.

Japan faced a steeply rising incidence of illegal abortion after World War II. In 1948, it passed a new law allowing abortion in cases of rape, hereditary anomaly, and damage to the woman’s health; economic considerations were added in 1949. A 1976 amendment lowered the limit on abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks of pregnancy. A legislative effort in 1982 to tighten the law was withdrawn after strong protests by women and doctors. The legal time limit for abortion was cut to 22 from 24 weeks of gestation in 1991.

Legal abortion was introduced in 1971, when concern about burgeoning population growth became an issue for India. Giving or taking prenatal tests solely to determine the sex of the foetus has been criminalised by the Indian parliament. Female children are still widely considered to be a social and financial liability in a country where the dowry system is still a part of marriage.

Abortion is permitted to save the woman’s life. An aggressive national family planning program was launched in the early 1970’s, and incidents of coercive birth control practices have been reported. Abortion had been discouraged by all religious groups, and forbidden by the Dutch colonial authorities in 1918. Prior to 1965, abortion was largely carried out by traditional birth attendants using techniques of massage, herbal drinks, and various objects or liquids inserted into the vagina.

A judicial interpretation in the early 1970's permitted medical professionals to offer abortions, although abortion was technically illegal under the criminal code, so long as they were discreet and careful. Medical and community groups campaigned for a more liberal abortion law to protect practitioners and stamp out illegal practices. A Health Law of 1992 was passed but did not resolve the issue. The law states that a "certain medical procedure" could be performed to save the life of a pregnant woman. The word "abortion" was avoided by legislators in order to avoid political risk.

Legal abortion became possible in Denmark to save a woman’s life in 1939. This law was liberalised in 1956 to include medical and social grounds. A revision was made in 1970 to allow any woman over the age of 38 and women with four or more living children access to legal abortion.

The law of June 13, 1973 made Denmark the first Western European country to permit abortion on request during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. While abortion is legally restricted when the pregnancy is past three months, in practice, about 90% of requests for abortions at 13-16 weeks are approved.

The Finnish abortion law was passed in 1970 and revised in 1978 and 1985. Abortion is available for up to 12 weeks with the approval of two doctors for a range of health and social reasons. After 12 weeks, risk to the woman’s physical health or life or to foetal health are legal requirements for abortion.

The abortion debate in Ireland came to a head in 1992 when a 14-year-old rape victim was prevented by the courts from leaving the country to obtain an abortion. The Supreme Court overturned the judgement deciding that although the Irish law prohibits abortion without exception, the girl was allowed to have the abortion in the UK.

As a result of this case, a three-part referendum on abortion rights was held in November of 1992 and constitutional amendments allowing access to abortion information and the right to travel abroad for the procedure were passed. A third amendment on the substantive issue of abortion was defeated. Another referendum on the substantive issue was defeated in 2002 and abortion remains illegal in Ireland.

Since 1979, Norwegian women have been allowed free abortion upon request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. After 12 weeks, abortion must be authorised by a board of 2 doctors, but is allowed for a variety of reasons, including a woman’s being placed "in difficult circumstances". After 18 weeks the law permits abortion only when there are "particularly important grounds.” The 1978 abortion laws include the following statement of principle:

“Society shall ensure as far as is possible that all children enjoy conditions for a secure upbringing. As part of this task, society shall ensure that all persons receive ethical guidance, sex education, information on matters of communal living, and family planning facilities, in order to create a responsible attitude to such matters so that the number of pregnancy terminations is as low as possible."

British law prohibited abortion until the Bourne case of 1938 where Dr. Alec Bourne aborted a 14-year-old girl who had been raped by soldiers. Bourne turned himself over to the authorities so that he would be a test case. Justice Mc Naughten told the jury that if Bourne believed that continuation of the pregnancy “would make the woman a physical or a mental wreck”, then he operated for the purpose only of preserving the life of the woman and he was, therefore, acquitted.

This ambiguous legal precedent was adopted by other Commonwealth nations. The decision left unclear whether mental as well as physical health could be taken into consideration.

In 1967, an act was passed which allowed abortion where two doctors find the continuation of the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s life, to her physical and mental health or to any existing children “greater than if the pregnancy were terminated”. It also included cases where there was “substantial risk” of the foetus suffering from an anomaly.

The British House of Commons voted to cut the legal time limit for abortions from 28 to 24 weeks of pregnancy in April 1992. It also removed the upper limit of 28 weeks in cases of foetal handicap or “grave permanent injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman”. In 1991, RU 486 (the French “abortion pill”) was approved for use in Britain for pregnancies up to 9 weeks’ duration

It is estimated that, in the early 1970’s, as many as half a million French women had clandestine abortions each year. In 1975, French law made abortion available to women until the tenth week of pregnancy on condition that they undergo counselling on alternatives and observe a one-week waiting period. Two physicians must certify that the woman’s health is endangered or the foetus is handicapped after the ten week period. In September 1988, France became the first Western country to allow the sale of the “abortion pill”, RU 486 and it now accounts for approximately 30% of the

In 1976, West Germany passed a law which permitted abortion in the first 12 weeks for reasons of medical necessity, sexual crimes or serious social or emotional distress. It required the approval of a second doctor, mandatory counselling and a three-day wait after counselling.

In East Germany (then the German Democratic Republic), legislation was enacted in 1972 to permit abortion on request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. That law stipulated that “In addition to the existing possibilities of contraception, a woman shall have the right to decide on the interruption of her pregnancy on her own responsibility, so as to be able to control the number, timing and spacing of births.” Negotiators working on the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 were required to try to reconcile the differences between the two countries’ laws on abortion. Finally, after a two-year legal debate on the issue, a new German abortion law was approved by the Bundestag (parliament). The 1992 law permitted first trimester abortions on request after mandatory counselling and a three-day waiting period. However, before the new law could take effect, it was challenged in court by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other conservative members of parliament, as well as by the State of Bavaria.

In 1993, a judgment by the Federal Constitutional Court found abortions were unlawful, since the constitution protects foetal life from conception. Yet it also found that abortions during the first three months of pregnancy should not be punished, if the woman first submits to counselling aimed at changing her mind. And, said the Court, such abortions are not covered under statutory health insurance and cannot be performed in state hospitals. A follow-up law allowing abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy - provided the woman undergoes counselling by a doctor - was narrowly approved by Germany’s parliament in 1995.

Although abortion had been freely available in the Netherlands for years, it was only in April1981 that the Dutch Parliament brought the law into line with practice. It passed a bill authorising a woman, together with her doctor, to decide whether there is an “intolerable situation”. Abortion is allowed in this case up to the 24th week. There is a compulsory waiting period of five days.

In 1986 the government began to pay for the procedure through the state health care system.

Bulgaria made abortion on request accessible to all women in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in 1990.

When the country divided into two independent states effective January, 1993, substantial fees for abortions were soon instituted in both the Czech and Slovak Republics. In deeply Catholic Slovakia, attempts by anti-abortion groups to legally restrict abortion are ongoing.

Hungary’s abortion laws became more liberal with new rules introduced at the beginning of 1989. These rules relaxed the strong restrictions imposed in 1973 to try to stop the decline in the birth rate. (There was a total ban on abortion in the 1950’s for the same reason, before it was legalized again in 1956). Under the 1989 rules, first-trimester abortions were made available for a wide variety of social and economic reasons. In December of 1991, Hungary’s highest court ruled that these liberal abortion regulations were unconstitutional and gave the Hungarian parliament until the end of 1992 to change them. Hungary passed a new law “on the protection of foetal life” in December of 1992.

This law declares that pregnancy can only be interrupted in cases where a risk exists. Pregnancy may be terminated up to the twelfth week in the case of rape, a serious health threat to the woman or the foetus, or when the pregnant woman is in a grave crisis situation. Rape must be confirmed by the initiation of police proceedings, and the existence of a threat to health must be confirmed by two medical specialists.

After 12 weeks, abortion may be allowed if the foetus is demonstrably seriously impaired or the pregnancy is endangering the life of the woman.

Because of panic over low birth rates, the 1957 statute permitting elective abortions was reversed in 1966 under Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. In 1986, the law was tightened further to ban abortions for any female under age 45, unless her life was in danger.

On December 26, 1989, one day after defeating Ceausescu, the National Salvation Front repealed the 1966 and 1986 decrees restricting abortion and contraception.

A decree from the Commissariats of Health and Justice permitted free abortions at all Soviet hospitals in 1920, and prohibited anyone but a doctor from performing them. The Health Commissariat soon claimed that illegal abortion had been stamped out.

In 1936 abortion was forbidden except in the case of hereditary disease or when the pregnancy threatened the life and health of the woman under Stalin’s rule. In 1955, prohibitions on abortion were ended (two years after the death of Stalin).

In 1988, the Soviet Union further eased its abortion law, extending the termination period and permitting a wider range of non-medical reasons. Abortion is available to all women in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the second trimester, abortions can be performed for medical reasons, or for social reasons, like rape or divorce. Outdated abortion techniques, which cause a high number of complications, are used in both government abortions and illegal ones. Abortion has traditionally been the primary method of birth control in the Soviet Union. Officially, 55% of known pregnancies are terminated by abortion, but the true rate is probably higher. The level of induced abortion is higher in the former USSR than in any other country in the world. It is not uncommon for a Soviet woman to have four or five abortions and a few women to have as many as twenty. Recently, the attitude is changing and the number of abortions carried out annually in Russia has dropped somewhat.

In 1990 the grounds for a legal abortion were broadened, and in mid-1991, abortion on request was in effect authorised.

In 1986, Greece passed a law legalising abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy on request of the woman. Abortion can be obtained through the 24th week for medical reasons relating to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, or the unhealthy development of the foetus. Abortion is available up to 19 weeks when the pregnancy results from rape, sexual intercourse with a minor, or incest.

Prior to 1986, abortions were technically illegal but had been readily available from physicians.

Prior to 1978, Italy had an estimated illegal abortion rate of up to 800,000 per year.In that year, the government passed a liberal law, despite fierce opposition from the Vatican. Under this new law, any woman over age 18 may have an abortion for health, social or financial reasons within the first ninety days of the pregnancy, provided she obtains a doctor’s certificate, waits for a minimum of 7 days, and undergoes counselling. Abortion after 90 days is permitted if continued pregnancy endangers the life or physical or mental health of the woman or if there are grounds for believing the foetus is deformed.

In May1981, the Italian people rejected a referendum which would have repealed the liberal abortion law.

Historically, Spanish law followed the Catholic Church's ideology on abortion.

In 1985, after the 1983 abortion law was found unconstitutional, Spain legalized abortion in cases of rape, severe foetal abnormality and serious risk to the woman’s mental or physical health. In 1994, Spain’s government proposed legislation that would permit abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The abortion would require a three-day waiting period following counselling on alternatives to abortion.

Abortion has been legal on request during the first 10 weeks in the republics since 1978, and may be granted after 10 weeks with the permission of a committee. With the breakup of the Yugoslav federation and the onset of war in June of 1991, the former Yugoslav abortion law is only technically in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in Croatia and Serbia.

Abortion was in the news in 1992 when it came to light that an estimated 20,000-50,000 women and girls, mostly Bosnian Muslims, had been systematically raped by Serbian fighters and many held captive for months to prevent abortion. The mass rapes and forced pregnancies were apparently part of the “ethnic cleansing” campaign. Rapes by Croats and Muslim soldiers were also committed, but apparently on a much smaller scale.

In the predominantly Catholic state of Croatia, where an anti-abortion campaign by the church and conservative women’s groups has been underway, it is now difficult to get an abortion. The Pope provoked an outcry when he appealed to the raped women to bear their violators' children rather than choose abortion.