Exercising that freedom requires having access to both family planning and related health care services. Adolescents who lack of information and services are particularly at risk. In most parts of the world, the majority of new HIV infections are in young people between the ages of 15 and 24, sometimes younger. Older women and men also have distinct reproductive and sexual health needs that are often inadequately addressed. Most of these deaths and disabilities happen to women in developing countries, where pregnancy and giving birth are among the leading causes of death for women of childbearing age, and where the risk of death is 50 to 100 times greater than in developed countries.
Abortion performed under unsafe conditions is a serious threat to reproductive health.
The World Health Organization estimates that about 70,000 women die each year as a result of unsafe abortion, almost all of them in developing countries. Up to a third of maternal mortality and morbidity could be avoided if all women had access to a range of modern, safe and effective family planning services which would enable them to avoid unwanted pregnancy. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development agreed that abortion should not be promoted as a method of family planning. It was agreed that expanding and improving family planning services was key to reducing recourse to abortion and that, in countries where abortion is not against the law, abortion should be safe. Family planning services are an essential part of reproductive health care and have saved the lives and protected the health of millions of men, women and children.