One in five pregnancies worldwide ends in an abortion, amounting to a significant fall compared with the mid-nineties, but nearly half these terminations still take place in unsafe conditions, a study says.
In 2003, the latest year for which full figures are available, 42 million abortions were carried out around the world, compared with 46 million in 1995, according to the paper published by The Lancet next Saturday.
For every 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44 in 2003, 29 had an abortion, down from 35 in 1997, it said.
"Overall abortion rates are similar in the developing and developed world, but unsafe abortion is concentrated in developing countries," it notes....