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The Guttmacher Institute and the WHO have for many years gathered information on abortion rates in every country and territory, assessed the quality of the available information, and made necessary adjustments to account for misreporting and underreporting. Now, these organizations have provided updated estimates of the incidence of safe and unsafe induced abortion in women age 15 to 44.
Just over one fifth of all pregnancies worldwide ended in abortion in 2008 (relatively consistent with data from 1995 and 2003). Disturbingly, the percentage of abortions that were unsafe rose from 44% in 1995 to 49% in 2008. Regions with the most restrictive abortion laws had some of the highest rates of both abortion and abortion-related death.