Induced Abortion and Women’s Reproductive Health in India

Sutapa Agrawal, South Asia Network for Chronic Disease

Despite the intensive national campaign for safe motherhood and legalization of induced abortion, morbidity from abortion has remained a serious problem for Indian women. The present paper tries to examine the consequences of induced abortion on women’s reproductive health by exploring the data of 90,303 ever-married women age 15-49 years, included in India’s NFHS-2, 1998-99. Binary logistic regression methods were used to examine the consequences of induced abortion on women’s reproductive health. Independent of other factors, the likelihood of experiencing any reproductive health problems was 1.5 times higher among women who had one induced abortion and 1.9 times higher among women who had two or more induced abortions compared to women with no history of induced abortion. The study suggests that induced abortions may have negative consequences for women’s reproductive health. Programs should focus more on availability and accessibility of contraceptives among women to elude the reproductive health consequences of induced abortion.