Abortion laws in other countries range from complete criminal bans that can carry decades in prison to publicly funded access with no statutory limit at all. Most nations sit somewhere between those poles, permitting the procedure under specific medical, social, or gestational conditions shaped by domestic legal tradition, religious influence, and evolving views on personal autonomy. The World Health Organization’s 2022 guidelines recommended full decriminalization and removal of gestational limits from criminal law, but the actual picture across roughly 200 countries remains fragmented.
Countries With Total or Near-Total Bans
A small group of nations criminalize abortion under virtually all circumstances. El Salvador is the most cited example. Article 1 of its Constitution declares that the state “recognizes the human being as a person from the moment of conception,” and that language drives enforcement.1Constitute. El Salvador 1983 (rev. 2014) Constitution Article 133 of the Penal Code criminalizes all abortions without exception, with penalties of up to eight years in prison. In practice, prosecutors have reclassified suspected abortions as aggravated homicide, resulting in sentences of 30 years or more. Women who experienced miscarriages or obstetric emergencies have been convicted under those charges.
The Dominican Republic takes a similar line. Article 317 of its Penal Code punishes anyone who causes or directly aids an abortion with two to five years in prison, a penalty that also applies to the woman herself.2Legal Information Institute. Article 317 Penal Code of the Dominican Republic, Abortion There are no codified exceptions for rape, incest, or threats to the pregnant person’s life.
Nicaragua eliminated its last remaining exception for therapeutic abortion through a 2006 congressional vote. Article 143 of Law No. 641 imposes one to three years of imprisonment on anyone who performs an abortion with the woman’s consent, plus a two-to-five-year professional ban for healthcare workers. The woman herself faces one to two years for consenting to or self-inducing the procedure.
Poland is the most restrictive framework in the European Union. Following a 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling that struck down the exception for severe fetal abnormalities, only two legal grounds remain: a pregnancy that endangers the woman’s life or health, or a pregnancy resulting from a criminal act such as rape, the latter requiring prosecutor certification. Providers who perform an abortion outside those grounds face up to three years of imprisonment, though the pregnant woman is not subject to criminal penalties.3HUDOC. Case of ML v Poland
Enforcement in these countries tends to be aggressive. Hospitals are monitored for suspicious pregnancy outcomes, and women who present with complications from miscarriage or stillbirth can find themselves treated as suspects.
Countries That Allow Abortion Only To Save a Life
A larger group of nations permit abortion under a single narrow exception: when the pregnancy threatens the pregnant person’s life. In Nigeria, Section 297 of the Criminal Code protects a medical professional who performs a surgical operation “in good faith and with reasonable care and skill” for “the preservation of the mother’s life.” Outside that exception, causing a miscarriage carries up to fourteen years in prison under Section 228. The Penal Code applicable in Nigeria’s northern states uses similar language.
Brazil’s 1940 Penal Code adds one more exception. Article 128 protects a doctor who performs an abortion when “there is no other means of saving the life of the pregnant woman” and, separately, when the pregnancy resulted from rape and the woman consents.4Legal Information Institute. Decreto Federal n. 2.848/1940 – Codigo Penal Brasileiro A 2012 Supreme Court decision also permits termination in cases of anencephaly.
Indonesia regulates abortion through Law No. 36 of 2009 on Health, which permits the procedure only in medical emergencies threatening the life of the mother or the fetus. The law requires a formal diagnosis, family consent, and other administrative prerequisites. A provider who acts without meeting those conditions faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to one billion rupiah (roughly $60,000 USD).
The practical difficulty with life-only exceptions is interpretation. Doctors must decide in real time whether a condition is life-threatening “enough” to justify the legal risk. Many wait until a patient deteriorates further, because the line between a serious health risk and an imminent threat to life is medically blurry but legally decisive.
Countries That Consider Health, Social, and Economic Grounds
Other nations allow doctors to weigh broader circumstances. The United Kingdom is the best-known example. Under the Abortion Act 1967, a pregnancy can be terminated if two registered medical practitioners agree that continuing it “would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family.” The law explicitly allows doctors to consider the woman’s “actual or reasonably foreseeable environment,” which means financial hardship, housing instability, and family size are legitimate factors. This ground applies up to 24 weeks. After that, the procedure remains legal to prevent grave permanent injury or where there is a substantial risk of serious fetal abnormality.5Legislation.gov.uk. Abortion Act 1967
India updated its framework through the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act of 2021. A single doctor can authorize termination up to 20 weeks if continuing the pregnancy would risk the woman’s life or cause grave injury to her physical or mental health. Between 20 and 24 weeks, two doctors must agree, and the expanded law covers survivors of sexual assault, minors, and people whose marital status changed during pregnancy. The law treats failed contraception and rape as presumptive grounds for claiming grave mental health injury.6Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department). Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021
Japan’s Maternal Health Act names economic hardship as an explicit ground. Article 14 permits an abortion when “the continuation of pregnancy or delivery may significantly damage the person’s physical health due to bodily or economic reasons.”7Japanese Law Translation. Maternal Health Act – Section: Chapter III Maternal Health Protection Official guidance interprets that phrase to cover situations where continuing the pregnancy would impose “serious economic constraints upon the mother’s household.” Japan is unusual, though, in still requiring spousal consent. Exceptions exist by interpretation for victims of sexual and domestic violence, but the statute itself has not been amended.
Countries Where Abortion Is Available on Request
The most permissive systems treat early abortion as a routine medical service that requires no justification beyond the patient’s decision. These frameworks vary mainly in how many weeks of pregnancy they cover.
Canada has had no criminal law governing abortion since the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in R v Morgentaler, which struck down the existing restrictions as a violation of the right to security of the person under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.8Legal Information Institute. R v Morgentaler No federal legislation has replaced those provisions. Access is funded through provincial healthcare systems.
Argentina transformed its landscape in December 2020 with Law 27.610, which allows elective abortion up to 14 weeks without any justification. After 14 weeks, the procedure remains available in cases of rape or threats to the patient’s life or health. The law requires the public health system to provide the procedure free of charge within ten days of the request.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued ruling C-055 in February 2022, decriminalizing abortion on request up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.9Constitutional Court of Colombia. Ruling C-055 of 2022 That is one of the most generous gestational limits in the world for unrestricted access. After 24 weeks, the procedure remains available under grounds established by an earlier 2006 ruling.
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in September 2023 that criminalizing abortion in the Federal Penal Code violates the human rights of women and pregnant people, effectively decriminalizing the procedure at the federal level. Federal healthcare institutions were directed to ensure access. Implementation still varies across Mexico’s 32 states, many of which have their own penal codes, but the federal ruling set a constitutional floor.
Most European Union member states also allow elective abortion in the first trimester. France extended its gestational limit from 12 to 14 weeks through a 2022 law.10IVG.gouv.fr. Abortion Guide Ireland legalized abortion on request up to 12 weeks following a 2018 referendum that repealed its constitutional ban by a two-thirds majority. Thailand amended its laws in 2021 to permit abortion on request through 20 weeks, with mandatory counseling required after 12 weeks.
Gestational Limits, Counseling, and Consent
Even where abortion is legal, the window of access is tightly regulated. The most common cutoff for unrestricted access falls between 12 and 14 weeks of pregnancy in Europe and parts of Latin America. After that threshold, patients typically need a medical diagnosis of fetal abnormality or a documented threat to their health. The UK’s 24-week general limit and Colombia’s matching threshold are outliers. Canada, with no statutory limit, is the rarest model.
Mandatory counseling and waiting periods are common tools. Germany requires patients to attend a state-approved counseling session at least three days before the procedure, and the abortion must take place within 12 weeks of conception. The doctor who performs the procedure cannot be the same person who provides the counseling.11German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Pregnancy Counselling Section 218 Germany’s framework technically still sits within its criminal code under Section 218, though the counseling-plus-waiting-period pathway makes it functionally legal. A 2024 government commission recommended removing abortion from the criminal code entirely, but the reform bill failed to advance before parliamentary elections in early 2025.
Consent requirements add another layer. Several countries require parental consent or a judicial bypass for patients under 18. Japan and a few other nations still require spousal consent. The UK requires two doctors to sign off on the grounds for the procedure. India requires two doctors for abortions between 20 and 24 weeks. International human rights bodies have increasingly challenged spousal consent provisions as stripping the pregnant person of autonomous decision-making.
Conscientious Objection and Access in Practice
Legal access to abortion on paper does not always translate into actual access, and conscientious objection is the main reason for the gap. The UK’s Abortion Act 1967 was the first law to formally allow healthcare providers to refuse participation in abortion on grounds of personal or religious belief.5Legislation.gov.uk. Abortion Act 1967 Conscience clauses have since spread to dozens of countries.
Italy is the most studied example. Under Law 194 of 1978, healthcare workers can register as conscientious objectors. By the most recent government data, roughly 65 percent of gynecologists in Italy have done so. In some southern regions, the rate is even higher, leaving a handful of non-objecting doctors to handle the entire caseload. The result is long travel distances or waiting times that can push patients closer to or past the legal gestational limit. Multiple United Nations human rights bodies, including the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, have expressed concern about the situation.
The WHO’s 2022 guidelines recommended that conscientious objection should not create barriers to care and that objecting providers should be required to refer patients to a willing provider without delay. Some countries, including Argentina under Law 27.610, have built referral requirements into their legislation. Others leave it to individual hospitals, which in practice means the patient bears the burden of finding a willing doctor.
The Overall Direction
The global trajectory over the past decade has moved predominantly toward liberalization. Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Ireland, and Thailand all expanded legal access between 2018 and 2023. France widened its gestational window. India broadened its list of eligible patients. These changes generally followed sustained public advocacy, judicial intervention, or both.
Moving the other way, Poland’s 2020 ruling eliminated its most commonly used exception for fetal abnormalities, which had accounted for the vast majority of legal abortions in the country. The broader pattern, though, is that countries are increasingly treating abortion as a healthcare question rather than a criminal one. Decriminalization does not mean deregulation. Countries that remove abortion from the penal code still regulate it through health law, requiring licensed providers, clinical settings, gestational thresholds, and reporting. The shift is in who controls the decision and what consequences follow from making it.