Twenty million unsafe abortions are performed each year, 90% of which occur in the developing world. Even in countries such as China, where abortion is fully accessible in practice as well as in theory, our understanding of the phenomenon is very partial. The result of a global research project commissioned by the World Health Organization, this book provides new information on abortion, why it happens and what happens when it does. There are sections detailing women' s perspectives and also chronicling the providers views and the effect they have on medical provision. Several essays focus on the relationship between contraception and abortion, while a section on adolescents addresses a newly emerging concern for program managers around the world. Including much previously unavailable material, this book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of abortion globally.

At a UN General Assembly Special Session in 1999, governments recognised unsafe abortion as a major public health concern, and pledged their commitment to reduce the need for abortion through expanded and improved family planning services, as well as ensure abortion services should be safe and accessible. This technical and policy guidance provides a comprehensive overview of the many actions that can be taken in health systems to ensure that women have access to good quality abortion services as allowed by law.

Dying to Count explores how national and global population politics collide in Senegalese hospitals as health workers treat and document women who present with complications of abortion. Siri Suh's ethnography illustrates political, economic, professional, and technological factors that jeopardize quality of and access to obstetric care in public hospitals despite national and global commitments to reproductive health.

"Now with a new afterword by the author"--Back cover.

The Clinical practice handbook for safe abortion care is intended to facilitate the practical application of the clinical recommendations from the second edition of Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems (World Health Organization [WHO] 2012). While legal, regulatory, policy and service-delivery contexts may vary from country to country, the recommendations and best practices described in both of these documents aim to enable evidence-based decision-making with respect to safe abortion care.

This book discusses the common principles of morality and ethics derived from divinely endowed intuitive reason through the creation of al-fitr' a (nature) and human intellect (al-‘aql). Biomedical topics are presented and ethical issues related to topics such as genetic testing, assisted reproduction and organ transplantation are discussed. Whereas these natural sources are God’s special gifts to human beings, God’s revelation as given to the prophets is the supernatural source of divine guidance through which human communities have been guided at all times through history. The second part of the book concentrates on the objectives of Islamic religious practice – the maqa' sid – which include: Preservation of Faith, Preservation of Life, Preservation of Mind (intellect and reason), Preservation of Progeny (al-nasl) and Preservation of Property. Lastly, the third part of the book discusses selected topical issues, including abortion, assisted reproduction devices, genetics, organ transplantation, brain death and end-of-life aspects. For each topic, the current medical evidence is followed by a detailed discussion of the ethical issues involved.

Based on extensive original field research, this provocative collection presents case studies from Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia and India. It includes an insight into the conditions and hard choices faced by women and the circumstances surrounding unplanned pregnancies.