According to the United Nations, “Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.”
According to the Meyers Enzyklopädischem Lexikon, a termination of pregnancy is “an intervention in the development of human life in utero”. It is the “killing of the fruit of the womb in the mother’s body or inducement of the miscarriage of a not yet viable “fruit” from the mother’s body”
Of course the opinion that it’s better to use contraception than it is to abort is held almost universally and the goal of reducing the number of terminations is expressly pursued. Abortion is considered as an emotive-symbolic issue that provokes conflicts over basic moral and religious values. It is not worldwide a partisan issue. While in Austria, Spain, Canada or in the USA all the left-wing parties have a pro-right profile, it is much less unified in France, Ireland and Italy and it is not a partisan issue at all in Great Britain.
Abortion is nevertheless an important issue as in 2003 43 million of termination of pregnancy were performed, so 29 abortions pro 1 000 women or 31 abortions for 100 births. But the half took place in not adapted structures because of social, legal or religious pressure and led to 1 million accidents. Indeed clandestine abortions always generate pains. States which don’t allow terminations have 330 deaths for 100 000 terminations whereas when it is legal, only between 0.2 and 1.2 woman dies for 100 000 abortions.
But having an abortion is prohibited in 68 countries that represent 25.7% of world’s population. Only 56 countries (representing 39.3% of the world’s population) allow termination of pregnancy without any restriction, or on demand. Among them, there are only 20 members of the 27