New Study Warns: Safe Abortion Care Remains Out of Reach For Millions

Groundbreaking research across West and Central Africa finds women’s lives are being endangered needlessly because of the gap between rights on paper and reality.

A landmark regional study “The Maze Women Face: Stuck Between Rights and Reality” launching today at the International Conference of Family Planning (ICFP) in Bogotá. It reveals a failure to protect women and girls from lethal consequences of unsafe abortion – even when the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest when safe abortion is legally permitted.

Every day, around 40 women in sub-Saharan Africa die from unsafe abortion, deaths researchers say are “entirely preventable.”

The report, led by Rutgers and partners, is the first to link sexual violence and unsafe abortion across West and Central Africa, uncovering how survivors face a “maze” of barriers blocking them from lawful, safe care. Proof requirements that retraumatise, health workers unsure of the law, procedural delays, and deep-rooted stigma drive women to unsafe methods.

Mena Agbodjavou, lead researcher CERRHUD in Benin, said: “”We have collected testimonies from women and girls who, after being raped, tried to end their pregnancies on their own. Without access to safe abortion methods, they ended up using unsafe methods, such as pills or herbs bought at local markets and ended up being hospitalised. These situations are frequent in our subregion and have serious consequences.”

The study’s release coincides with the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s reelection – a political moment that re-shaped global health funding. Policies and budget cuts introduced under Trump, including the Global Gag Rule, slashed support for sexual and reproductive health services worldwide, cutting off millions from contraception, care and safe options.

Lead researcher on the project Jonna Both said: “Behind every unsafe abortion we recorded was a story of fear, pressure or silence — never one of free choice. The law alone is not protection – that’s really clear in West and Central Africa and across the globe.” 

“Unless access is real in practice, girls and women are forced into risky last-resort methods with lifelong or lethal consequences.” 

The campaign calls for urgent government action to turn legal rights into real access by removing unnecessary barriers, resourcing safe abortion care, ending stigma in healthcare systems and respecting women’s rights to safe medical care.