The findings are from a representative survey of 672 hospitals and private physician practices. The study was endorsed by The Nigerian Medical Association and the Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria. Despite the startling number of women who are able to obtain an abortion from physicians, the fact remains that most abortions in Nigeria are performed by nonphysicians and often under very unsafe conditions. Physician respondents believe that the main methods used by nonphysicians to induce abortions are dilation and curettage, hormonal or synthetic drugs and insertion of solid or sharp objects. Some 1,300 doctors and hospitals in all parts of the country are responding to women's need to terminate unwanted pregnancies, performing some 245,000 abortions each year.
Most doctors perform only a few abortions, typically about one per week.
Most Nigerian women and couples want to limit their number of children to 6 or fewer, and they also want to space the birth of their children at healthy intervals. The question is not why so many physicians are willing to meet women's needs to terminate a pregnancy. Information on abortion is extremely limited in countries where abortion is legally restricted and official statistics are not collected. To obtain data of reasonable quality under these circumstances in Nigeria, AGI and CAUP undertook this survey of a sample of health establishments representing all four health zones of the country. The survey drew on lists of nearly 6,000 health establishments where abortions might be performed and included both publicly and privately owned facilities that ranged from small practices to large hospitals.