Abortion laws by country fall into four broad tiers: total bans with no exceptions, exceptions only to save a life, broader allowances tied to health or social circumstances, and access on request up to a gestational cutoff. More than 60 countries have expanded access since the 1990s, but the movement has not been one-directional, and a person’s legal options still depend almost entirely on where they live.
Countries With Total Bans
A small group of countries prohibits abortion under all circumstances, including when the pregnant person’s life is at stake. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic are the most prominent examples. In El Salvador, prison sentences for obtaining or performing an abortion range from two to eight years, and prosecutors have charged individuals with aggravated homicide, which carries sentences of 30 years or more. Miscarriages and stillbirths in these countries sometimes trigger criminal investigations on suspicion that the pregnancy was deliberately ended.
Nicaragua removed its life-saving exception in 2006. Under the current penal code, anyone who performs an abortion with consent faces one to three years in prison, and a health professional who does so can be barred from practicing for up to five years. Honduras embedded its ban in the constitution and requires a three-fourths supermajority in Congress to amend it. The Dominican Republic’s Constitution declares that the right to life is “inviolable from conception to death,” language courts have read as blocking any legislative exception.1Constitute. Dominican Republic 2015 Constitution
Malta, long the only European country with a total ban, introduced a narrow life-saving exception in 2023. Under the amended criminal code, no offense is committed when ending a pregnancy results from a medical intervention carried out to save the life of a woman facing an immediate, potentially fatal complication. The reform covers only imminent threats to life, but it moved Malta out of the total-ban category.
Abortion Permitted Only to Save a Life
A larger group of countries allows abortion exclusively when the procedure is necessary to prevent the pregnant person’s death. These laws create a high bar. Doctors typically must demonstrate that the threat to life was imminent and that no alternative treatment existed, and the burden of proof falls on the medical professional.
Brazil permits abortion only when there is no other way to save the pregnant person’s life, when the pregnancy resulted from rape, or when the fetus has anencephaly. The first two exceptions come from the penal code; the anencephaly exception was established by the Brazilian Supreme Court in 2012.2Legal Information Institute. Decreto Federal n. 2.848/1940 – Codigo Penal Brasileiro Nigeria similarly restricts the procedure to situations where the woman’s life is at risk. Its penal code provides that causing a miscarriage is punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment unless done in good faith to save the mother’s life.3Federal Ministry of Health, Nigeria. National Guidelines on Safe Termination of Pregnancy for Legal Indications
In practice, doctors in life-only jurisdictions often delay intervention until a patient’s condition becomes critical, waiting for the legal threshold to be met rather than acting on clinical judgment. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East operate within this tier, though enforcement and access to emergency care vary widely.
Broad Health, Social, and Economic Grounds
Some countries occupy a middle tier: abortion is not available on request, but the legally recognized grounds extend well beyond life-threatening emergencies. India and Great Britain are the two most significant examples. Both laws require medical professionals to certify that continuing the pregnancy would harm the patient’s physical health, mental health, or broader well-being.
India’s Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act originally allowed termination up to 20 weeks when continuance of the pregnancy would risk the patient’s life or cause grave injury to physical or mental health.4India Code. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 A 2021 amendment extended the limit. A single doctor can now authorize the procedure up to 20 weeks, and two doctors can authorize it up to 24 weeks for specified categories of patients, including survivors of sexual assault, minors, and people whose marital status changes during pregnancy.5PRS Legislative Research. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Act 2021 The law directs doctors to consider the pregnant person’s “actual or reasonably foreseeable environment,” a phrase that brings social and economic hardship into the legal calculus.
Great Britain’s Abortion Act 1967 operates on a similar principle. Two registered medical practitioners must agree that continuing the pregnancy would involve greater risk to the patient’s physical or mental health than ending it, and the law explicitly states that they may take into account the pregnant person’s “actual or reasonably foreseeable environment.”6Legislation.gov.uk. Abortion Act 1967 Socioeconomic circumstances are weighed alongside clinical factors. The two-doctor requirement and the need for a stated justification distinguish these systems from true on-request models, even though approval rates under both laws are very high.
Abortion on Request With Gestational Limits
The most common legal framework worldwide, and the one covering the most people, allows abortion at the pregnant person’s request during the early stages of pregnancy, with a gestational cutoff after which additional justifications become necessary. Most European countries follow this model, typically setting the limit at 12 to 14 weeks. France and Spain set the threshold at 14 weeks; Germany and Italy at 12. A few set the limit higher, between 18 and 24 weeks. After the cutoff, abortion generally remains available for serious health risks or fetal abnormalities, but the patient can no longer access it on request alone.
South Africa is the most permissive law on the African continent. Its Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act allows abortion on request during the first 12 weeks, and from 13 to 20 weeks if continuing the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s physical or mental health, if the fetus has a severe abnormality, if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, or if the pregnancy would significantly affect the woman’s social or economic circumstances.7Parliament of South Africa. Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act 92 of 1996 After 20 weeks, it is available only for life-threatening situations or severe fetal malformation.
Canada occupies the far end of this spectrum. In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the country’s criminal abortion provisions in R. v. Morgentaler, finding them unconstitutional.8Supreme Court of Canada. R. v. Morgentaler – SCC Cases No replacement law was ever enacted. Canada has no federal criminal prohibition and no legislated gestational limit; abortion is treated as a health care service governed by the same medical standards as any other procedure.9Government of Canada. Abortion in Canada Most procedures occur well before viability, and individual provinces regulate access through their health care systems rather than through criminal law.
The United States After Dobbs
The United States no longer fits neatly into any single category. In 2022, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned nearly 50 years of precedent, holding that the Constitution “does not confer a right to abortion” and returning authority to regulate the procedure to elected officials at the state level.10Supreme Court of the United States. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization As of early 2026, 13 states enforce total bans, while nine states and the District of Columbia impose no gestational restriction at all.11Guttmacher Institute. State Bans on Abortion Throughout Pregnancy The remaining states fall somewhere in between, with limits ranging from 6 weeks to 24 weeks or viability.
This state-by-state variation has created a domestic version of what previously existed only at the international level, with people traveling from restrictive jurisdictions to more permissive ones. Cross-state travel for abortion has become a significant logistical and legal issue, and some restrictive states have explored ways to penalize residents who seek care elsewhere.
Latin America’s Green Wave
The most dramatic recent shift on the global abortion map has been in Latin America, a region historically dominated by restrictive laws. Beginning around 2020, several major countries moved sharply toward decriminalization in a movement known as the “Green Wave,” after the green bandanas worn by reform advocates.
Argentina legalized abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy in December 2020, replacing a framework that had previously allowed the procedure only in cases of rape or to save the mother’s life.12United Nations OHCHR. Argentina: UN Experts Praise Historic Law Legalising Abortion Colombia’s Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion up to 24 weeks in February 2022, finding that absolute criminalization violated the rights to health and equality; after 24 weeks, abortion remains available in cases of rape, fetal nonviability, or health risks. Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that absolute criminalization of voluntary abortion is unconstitutional, and in 2023 ordered Congress to remove federal criminal penalties entirely. Ecuador expanded its legal exceptions in 2021 to include all cases of rape, not just those involving women with disabilities.
The wave has not swept the entire region. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic remain in the total-ban category, and several other Latin American countries retain highly restrictive laws.
Other Recent Legal Shifts
In March 2024, France became the first country in the world to enshrine abortion as a constitutionally guaranteed freedom, adding the protection to Article 34 of its Constitution by a vote of 780 to 72 in a joint session of Parliament at the Château of Versailles. The amendment was widely seen as a response to the reversal of Roe v. Wade in the United States.
South Korea shows what happens when a court invalidates a ban but the legislature fails to act. In 2019, the Constitutional Court ruled South Korea’s criminal abortion ban unconstitutional and ordered the National Assembly to enact new legislation by the end of 2020. The Assembly never did. The result is a legal vacuum with no criminal ban but no regulatory framework governing when and how the procedure can be performed. In March 2026, a Seoul court issued criminal convictions in an abortion case, illustrating the confusion created by the legislature’s inaction.
Poland remains virtually locked in place. A 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling eliminated the fetal abnormality exception, previously the most commonly used ground for legal abortion, leaving only narrow exceptions for rape, incest, or threats to the mother’s life. Despite a change in government in 2023 that brought a pro-reform coalition to power, political obstruction has blocked legislative progress. Thailand moved in the other direction by extending its gestational limit for abortion on request from 12 weeks to 20 weeks.
Medication Abortion and International Health Standards
One development cuts across every legal tier. The World Health Organization classifies the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol as a core essential medicine for induced abortion, listing it on the Model List of Essential Medicines.13World Health Organization. Mifepristone – Misoprostol – Electronic Essential Medicines List
Medication abortion has become the most common method of early pregnancy termination in countries where it is legal, and it is widely used even where it is not. The pills can be obtained through telemedicine, international pharmacies, and informal networks, making enforcement of criminal bans increasingly difficult. Countries with total prohibitions now face a practical reality that their legal frameworks were not designed to address: a medical procedure that once required a clinic and a physician can now be performed privately with medications that are inexpensive and widely available. Criminal prosecution remains a real threat in ban countries, but the practical landscape those laws attempt to control has shifted.
Regional Snapshot
Broad geographic patterns are visible, though every region has its exceptions. Europe is overwhelmingly in the on-request category, with Poland and Malta as the notable outliers. North America is split: Canada has no criminal restrictions, while the United States is divided internally between states with total bans and states with no gestational limits. Latin America is the region in greatest flux, with the Green Wave expanding access in several countries while Central America and the Caribbean retain some of the world’s strictest laws.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains predominantly restrictive, with most countries permitting abortion only to save a life. South Africa, Mozambique, and Ethiopia are exceptions, though Ethiopia has tightened enforcement in recent years. The Middle East and North Africa generally allow the procedure only for life-threatening emergencies, with Tunisia and Turkey permitting on-request access in early pregnancy. South and Southeast Asia range from India’s broad health-based model to the Philippines’ near-total ban, with Thailand’s recent expansion pushing the region slightly toward liberalization. Central and former Soviet states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia generally permit abortion on request, a legacy of Soviet-era legal frameworks. The overall direction of movement worldwide remains toward liberalization, but the pace is uneven, and in a few countries the direction has reversed.