Unplanned and unwanted pregnancies are a fact of life. In every society, across all religious, cultural, and economic differences, women face unplanned pregnancies as a result of trying to negotiate the difficult balance between having sexual relations and choosing whether and when to have children. As long as there are unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, abortion will be a fact of life. When a woman decides to end an unwanted pregnancy, she will often go to extreme lengths to do so, regardless of whether the procedure is safe or legal. However, the chances of receiving a safe abortion vary widely and are determined by a variety of socioeconomic, legal, and cultural factors.
Many unplanned pregnancies result from the nonuse of contraceptives or from contraceptive failure.
Twenty-six million women who undergo abortion do so in countries with liberal abortion laws. Others may choose abortion because of relationship problems or because their pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. When performed by trained providers in sanitary conditions, abortion is one of the safest medical procedures. But for many women, abortion can be cost-prohibitive, and trained providers can be hard to come by. Because of these limitations, a woman may delay getting an abortion until later in her pregnancy when the risk of complications rises.