Dr. Ronald Johnson:

The issue with abortion is that it is the end result and we want to encourage countries to deal with the underlying determinants of abortion. Women have abortions because they have an unwanted pregnancy. If we can stop - or reduce, rather, as we cannot stop - unintended pregnancies then we can surely reduce the numbers of abortions. There will always be a need for abortion because contraceptives are not perfect. In the guidelines we have a model where we looked at contraceptive barrier rates and estimated there are approximately 33 million accidental pregnancies every year globally due to contraceptive failure. As Dr. Aiken said, many of the women who have abortions are trying to use contraception anyway. It is a critical component. No abortion service should be provided without offering post-abortion contraception to the women there on the spot.