Diminished choice

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Lest all this sound too encouraging to pro-choicers, the bad news comes in one final JAMWA article: If access to abortion is becoming a problem in the United States, Deborah Maine, Katrina Karkazis, and Nancy Bolan report, the issue is one of life and death for women in much of the rest of the world. They note that about one in 21 women in Africa will die as a result of complications from pregnancy or childbirth, compared to one in 6,366 in North America. Complications of induced abortions -- fully or partially outlawed in countries containing more than half the world's population, but widely performed nevertheless -- account for an estimated 14 percent of maternal deaths, totaling between 70,000 and 200,000 worldwide annually; in other words, every day 200 to 550 women die trying to terminate a pregnancy. In Latin America, botched abortions are the leading cause of death for women aged 15 to 39. For most of the world's women, the authors conclude, 'the bad old days are still here.'

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