Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumaran:

The experience in France, Italy and Turkey is that once termination of pregnancy is legalised, the abortion rate comes down. The only reason for that, is that it is combined, as Dr. Boylan mentioned, with good post abortion contraception. It is a very clear distinction that it comes down without any difficulty. Second, because medical termination of pregnancy is available, things are getting safer and safer. The World Health Organisation document shows that the chance of the mother dying during a termination in the first trimester is 0.1 per 100,0000, which is minimal. As the gestation period increases, so do the complications and so on go up and illegal abortion comes to the fore when she is in the later period of gestation and runs into difficulties. The answer is that legalisation of abortion brings the termination rates down. That is the experience not just in one but a number of countries, including South Africa.