More than 20 countries make abortion illegal in nearly all circumstances, and a handful ban it outright with no exception even to save the pregnant person’s life. Penalties for breaking these laws run from a few months in prison to 40 years, and in some jurisdictions a miscarriage can be prosecuted as homicide. The strictest laws are concentrated in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Countries With a Complete Ban
A small group of countries prohibits abortion under every circumstance, with no written exception for rape, incest, fatal fetal anomalies, or saving the pregnant person’s life. On paper, a doctor who ends a pregnancy to keep a patient alive can be prosecuted.
El Salvador is the most cited example. A 1998 Penal Code stripped out every prior exception, including the one that had allowed the procedure to save a life. The constitution was later amended to recognize personhood from conception, which gives prosecutors a basis to treat any terminated pregnancy as a possible homicide.
Nicaragua adopted a similar code in 2006, criminalizing abortion in all circumstances, including any medical treatment of a pregnant person that results in the death of or injury to an embryo or fetus. Honduras went further in 2021 by embedding its total ban in the constitution, making future legislative reform extremely difficult. The Dominican Republic takes the same constitutional approach: Article 37 declares the right to life “inviolable from conception until death,” and the penal code contains no medical or fetal-anomaly exceptions.1Constitute. Dominican Republic 2015 Constitution A 2024 Dominican Senate vote kept the complete ban intact during a broader criminal code reform.
The Philippines grounds its prohibition in the 1987 Constitution, which directs the state to “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.”2Constitute. Philippines 1987 Constitution The Revised Penal Code criminalizes the procedure without listing any permissible exceptions. Haiti’s penal code also criminalizes abortion, and whether a life-saving exception implicitly exists remains unresolved in practice. Vatican City and Andorra round out the total-ban list, though Andorra’s parliament was considering a decriminalization bill in late 2025 that would remove criminal penalties while still barring the procedure on Andorran soil.
Countries That Allow Abortion Only to Save a Life
A larger group permits one exception on paper: when continuing the pregnancy will kill the patient. In practice, the exception is often so narrowly written and so heavily policed that doctors delay or refuse to act.
Nigeria’s rules vary by region. In the south, the Criminal Code permits surgical intervention for “the preservation of the mother’s life” if performed in good faith with reasonable care.3Legal Information Institute. Criminal Code Act In the north, the Penal Code allows a miscarriage only if caused “in good faith for the purpose of saving the life of the woman.” Neither region extends the exception to rape, incest, or severe fetal impairment, and the good-faith requirement typically means multiple providers must document the necessity before anyone acts.
Bangladesh’s Penal Code, dating to 1860, uses the same life-saving formula.4Laws of Bangladesh. The Penal Code, 1860 – 312. Causing Miscarriage Senegal criminalizes the procedure in every circumstance, including rape and incest, through a penal code inherited from the French colonial period. Egypt prohibits abortion under Articles 260–264 of its 1937 Penal Code, though Article 61 contains a general necessity defense that courts have interpreted to permit the procedure when the pregnant person’s life is at stake.
Near-Total Bans With Narrow Exceptions
Other countries sit between a total ban and meaningful access. They allow the procedure in a few tightly defined situations, but the exceptions are difficult to invoke.
Poland is the most prominent European example. A 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling struck down the exception for fetal abnormalities, which had accounted for the majority of legal abortions in the country.5European Court of Human Rights. Judgment Concerning Poland What remains permits the procedure only when the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the pregnant person or results from rape or incest. A change of government in 2023 did not produce reform; the coalition failed to pass legislation in 2024 and has indicated no further effort is likely before the next election cycle. Doctors who might qualify for the existing exceptions often refuse to act out of fear of prosecution.
Brazil’s Penal Code of 1940 allows abortion when there is no other way to save the pregnant person’s life and when the pregnancy resulted from rape.6Legal Information Institute. Decreto Federal n. 2.848/1940 – Codigo Penal Brasileiro The Supreme Court added a third exception in 2012 for anencephaly. Outside those three situations, the procedure remains a crime, and the life-saving threshold requires providers to show that death is essentially certain without intervention.
Indonesia allows abortion in medical emergencies and cases of severe fetal anomaly, with a 2009 expansion adding rape as a ground, but only within six weeks of gestation. Morocco permits the procedure when the pregnancy threatens the pregnant person’s life or health, but requires spousal consent or, in its absence, approval from a chief medical officer.
Malta amended its Criminal Code in 2023 to allow termination when the pregnant person’s life is in danger. The law requires a medical team of at least two obstetricians plus a third specialist in the relevant health condition to approve the procedure. Before this change, Articles 241 through 243 imposed criminal penalties on anyone who caused a miscarriage under any circumstances, including the pregnant person herself.7Voices in Bioethics. Alone on an Island The Impact of COVID-19 Containment Measures on Access to Abortion Care in Malta Those articles remain in force outside the new exception.
Prison Sentences and Other Penalties
Penalties vary widely, but they share a structure: both the pregnant person and the provider face punishment, and medical professionals typically face the harshest sentences and loss of their license.
In El Salvador, Article 133 of the Penal Code prescribes two to eight years for anyone who performs an abortion with consent, or for a person who self-induces or consents to it. The real severity comes from prosecutorial practice: authorities routinely reclassify cases as aggravated homicide, which carries sentences of up to 40 years. Between 1999 and the mid-2010s, at least 34 women were convicted under this approach and sentenced to terms ranging from 4 to 40 years.
In the Philippines, the Revised Penal Code imposes prisión correccional on a pregnant person who self-induces or consents to the procedure, meaning six months and one day up to six years.8E-Library of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. An Act Revising the Penal Code and Other Penal Laws Medical professionals or midwives who use their training to perform the procedure face the maximum period of the applicable penalty plus permanent loss of their license.
Nigeria’s Criminal Code makes any person who unlawfully attempts to procure a miscarriage liable to up to 14 years in prison. A woman who attempts to end her own pregnancy faces up to seven years, and anyone who supplies materials knowing they will be used for an abortion faces up to three years.3Legal Information Institute. Criminal Code Act Nicaragua sets penalties of up to two years for the pregnant person and up to six years for medical professionals, combined with a professional ban of two to ten years. Bangladesh’s 1860 Penal Code punishes anyone who causes a miscarriage outside the life-saving exception.4Laws of Bangladesh. The Penal Code, 1860 – 312. Causing Miscarriage
When a Miscarriage Becomes a Criminal Case
In countries with total bans, the line between a miscarriage and a crime can disappear. This is the part of these laws that most surprises people.
El Salvador is the clearest case. Because the legal system treats any terminated pregnancy as a potential crime, obstetric emergencies regularly become criminal investigations. Women who arrive at hospitals experiencing miscarriages or stillbirths have been reported to police by medical staff, interrogated while still in medical distress, and charged with aggravated homicide. The Penal Code contains no formal mechanism for distinguishing an involuntary loss from an induced abortion, so the burden effectively falls on the woman to prove her innocence.
This creates a chilling effect on medical care. Providers face a choice between treating the patient and risking prosecution, or waiting until the patient’s condition clearly threatens her life before acting. In several documented cases across Central America, doctors delayed intervention until deterioration was unmistakable, because acting sooner might have exposed them to criminal liability.
Prosecution of miscarriages is not universal even among total-ban countries, but the legal architecture makes it possible wherever the law fails to distinguish involuntary loss from intentional termination. For patients in these jurisdictions, seeking emergency care for a pregnancy complication carries a legal risk that patients in most other countries do not face.
Where the Laws Have Recently Changed
The past few years have brought several notable shifts, mostly toward liberalization.
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in September 2023 that criminalizing abortion in the Federal Penal Code is unconstitutional. Federal health institutions must now provide the procedure, no judicial authority may indict anyone for consensual abortion, penalties for medical professionals who facilitate it were struck down, and the Court found it unconstitutional to impose gestational time limits in cases of rape. Individual Mexican states still have varying laws, but the federal ruling set a constitutional floor.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled in February 2022 that abortion is legal up to 24 weeks of gestation. After 24 weeks, the procedure remains available in cases of rape, incest, fetal nonviability, or threats to the pregnant person’s health, including mental health.9Center for Reproductive Rights. Decriminalizing Abortion in Colombia That was a sharp change from a system that had previously allowed the procedure only under three narrow exceptions.
Malta’s 2023 amendment broke a longstanding absolute prohibition, though only for life-threatening situations; five pregnancies were terminated under the new provision in the period following its enactment. Sierra Leone has been moving toward reform through a proposed Safe Motherhood Act that would permit termination up to 14 weeks and in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or health risks, but the bill stalled after protests in 2024. Reform tends to move slowly and unevenly, and the map of countries where abortion is illegal changes one jurisdiction at a time.