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Africa

Unsafe abortion kills more than 3,000 Nigerian women each year

April 22, 2008
Lauren Carmin, Guttmacher Institute


By conservative estimates, complications from unsafe abortion kill more than 3,000 women each year, according to a new study published in the March 2008 issue of International Family Planning Perspectives. Though abortion is illegal in Nigeria except to save a woman’s life, previous research has shown that many women will risk the dangers of a clandestine procedure rather than carry an unintended pregnancy to term. In 1996, an estimated 610,000 abortions occurred (25 per 1,000 women of childbearing age), of which 142,000 resulted in complications severe enough to require hospitalization. (The number of abortions is estimated to have risen to 760,000 in 2006.)

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