I don’t think there is strong evidence that legalisation of abortion reduces overall maternal deaths from abortion mortality or morbidity—in some cases, it can even increase it (as it has done in e.g. Netherlands, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and some others). Morbidity and mortality from unsafe abortion are mostly related to the overall state of a healthcare system rather than the legal status of abortion—e.g. Malta and Poland have pretty much entirely anti-abortion laws but have the lowest maternal mortality ratios in the world and deaths from unsafe abortion are unheard of. By contrast India, Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and a host of other countries have liberal laws but have plenty of unsafe abortion and resultant morbidity/mortality.
We do know that the WHO misrepresent the data on this, too—e.g. here https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion they claim that 4.7-13.2% of maternal deaths are due to abortion—but their reference clearly states that this includes deaths from miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies. They have been corrected about this but refuse to change it—so I don’t consider them the most trustworthy authorities on this question.
Sorry, I should have emphasized that it’s not so much about laws, but access to safe abortions, which the charities mentioned in the original post would help with. I appreciate you pointing out issues with the WHO though, I didn’t know that.
I don’t think there is strong evidence that legalisation of abortion reduces overall maternal deaths from abortion mortality or morbidity—in some cases, it can even increase it (as it has done in e.g. Netherlands, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and some others). Morbidity and mortality from unsafe abortion are mostly related to the overall state of a healthcare system rather than the legal status of abortion—e.g. Malta and Poland have pretty much entirely anti-abortion laws but have the lowest maternal mortality ratios in the world and deaths from unsafe abortion are unheard of. By contrast India, Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and a host of other countries have liberal laws but have plenty of unsafe abortion and resultant morbidity/mortality.
We do know that the WHO misrepresent the data on this, too—e.g. here https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion they claim that 4.7-13.2% of maternal deaths are due to abortion—but their reference clearly states that this includes deaths from miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies. They have been corrected about this but refuse to change it—so I don’t consider them the most trustworthy authorities on this question.
Sorry, I should have emphasized that it’s not so much about laws, but access to safe abortions, which the charities mentioned in the original post would help with. I appreciate you pointing out issues with the WHO though, I didn’t know that.