Abortion in Iran - Statistics and Trends

Statistics and Trends

The abortion rate in Iran is contested, and many surveys on the topic land with estimated numbers as opposed to hard data. This is due not only to the inherent difficulty in reaching all populations of Iran, which is a diverse country with large groups of the poor and rural, but also because of the sensitivity of the issue; especially in highly religious groups, the questioning about abortion trends is difficult, and the on-and-off receipt of honest answers has the potential to skew data in a way that makes real conclusions rather vague.

The abortion rate does vary significantly among Iran's provinces, but estimates include .26 lifetime abortions per Iranian woman, an estimated 73,000 a year, 27 abortions per 1000 women and 7.5 abortions per 1000 married women, and 11,543 abortions annually in Tehran, the nation's capitol. Interestingly, these statistics are as scholarly accepted as other quite dissimilar ones, such as one study's claim that more than a thousand unsafe abortions "take place every day in Iran" and another that reports that 100,000 younger women have illegal or induced abortions annually. The exact numbers on abortion in Iran are thus unknown, but there are some trends in the practice that have been widely reported and verified.

All over the world, there is a negative correlation between the use of contraceptives and the abortion rate; as the world adapts to new and accessible technologies developed for family planning and reproductive health, Iran is one of many nations that has found a lower rate of abortion in those areas that have higher rates of contraceptive use, which accounts for governmental acceptance and support of family planning and sexual health programs for the young. Additionally, ardent religious objections against the practice of abortion have become less legitimate in the eyes of many, especially in the middle and higher classes of Iran, as developments such as prenatal genetic testing make abortion more of a viable option in the case of a difficult pregnancy.