An Ethiopian woman has a one in seven chance of dying as a result of pregnancy or a reproductive health problem, compared with one in 9,000 for a Spanish woman and one in 3,500 for a woman in the U.S. Because of AIDS, the average life expectancy in Botswana is expected to drop to age 30 by 2010. Every 60 seconds, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Access to family planning services could save the lives of at least 25 percent of these women. When births are spaced less than two years apart, the risk of the child dying before age five is two and a half times that of births spaced three to four years apart. Worldwide, four million teenage women ages 15-19 have unsafe abortions each year.
Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of death among teenage women.