Her male partner bribed police while in custody and was released without charge. There are many tragic stories of the desperate lengths to which low-income women go to end an unwanted pregnancy, despite abortion's illegal status. Women and untrained providers use unsafe methods such as inserting sticks, catheters, powdered glass, herbal mixtures, lemon juice or cow dung into the uterus, taking large doses of contraceptive pills or otherwise physically harming themselves to induce abortion. In one recent case, a stick used to induce an abortion punctured the wall of a woman s uterus and intestines. She died of gangrene.
Unsafe abortion accounts for more than half of all maternal deaths.
Consequently, the unmet need for family planning is high, as are unintended pregnancies among married women. Over a third of unintended pregnancies, and more than half of those due to contraceptive failure, end in induced abortions. Abortion is a crime, even in cases of rape or incest, punishable by imprisonment for both the woman and the abortion provider. Legal restrictions do not prevent abortion. They prevent women, particularly rural and poor women, from accessing safe abortion services at low costs, forcing them to end unintended pregnancies under clandestine and unsafe conditions.