Abortion

Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, which includes deliberate termination and spontaneous termination, also referred to as “miscarriage.” The term “abortion” is typically associated with the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, usually occurring before twenty-eight weeks of gestation. The two types of deliberate abortions are surgical and medical. Surgical abortion involves using medical instruments to empty the uterus of the products of conception. In a medical abortion, medication is used to force the ending of the pregnancy. Abortions are categorized as either therapeutic or elective. Therapeutic abortion occurs when the termination is necessary for health reasons; elective abortion occurs when a pregnancy is ended by choice. The estimated rate of abortion worldwide in 2008 was twenty-eight per one thousand women, and nearly half of abortions performed are considered unsafe, with 98 percent of those unsafe procedures taking place in developing nations. Legal surgical abortion is one of the safest and most widely performed medical procedures available, yet it is heavily regulated worldwide because of tremendous religious, political, and personal disagreement regarding its ethical and moral acceptability. Thirty-two countries restrict abortion under any circumstances, thirty-six countries permit abortion only in extenuating circumstances (i.e., rape, incest), fifty-nine additional countries allow abortion in cases in which the woman’s health or mental health is at risk, and seventy countries allow some type of elective abortion. All nations allowing elective abortion impose gestational time limits on the procedure. The International Federation of Social Work, the National Association of Social Workers of the United States, and others support elective abortion as a necessary part of overall access to safe and affordable reproductive health care and family planning services. The commitment of social work to abortion access can be attributed to the profession’s stated ethical commitment to a client’s right to self-determination. Other groups, such as the International Right to Life Federation and the Catholic Church, oppose access to abortion based on their interpretation of religious beliefs and values.