Most countries in the world allow abortion under at least some circumstances, but the conditions vary enormously. Laws range from total bans with no exceptions to unrestricted access on request during the first trimester or beyond. Globally, six main legal grounds determine where abortion is permitted: risk to the pregnant person’s life, rape or sexual abuse, serious fetal anomaly, risk to physical or mental health, socioeconomic reasons, and on request with no reason required.
Countries That Allow Abortion on Request
The broadest category includes countries where abortion is available on request, typically within a gestational limit. Most of Europe falls here. Countries like Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa all permit abortion on request during the first trimester or longer. Gestational limits vary: some countries set the cutoff at 10 or 12 weeks, while others extend it further. After that point, abortion is usually still available but requires a medical or legal justification.
France made headlines in March 2024 by becoming the first country to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution. The amendment, sealed on International Women’s Day, states that “the law determines the conditions under which the freedom guaranteed to a woman to have recourse to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy is exercised.” This was a direct response to the reversal of federal abortion protections in the United States in 2022.
China, Vietnam, and Cuba also allow abortion on request, though the practical experience of accessing the procedure varies widely depending on local healthcare infrastructure.
Latin America’s Rapid Shift
Latin America has undergone some of the most dramatic legal changes in recent years, driven by grassroots movements and court rulings. Argentina’s legislature legalized abortion up to 14 weeks in 2020, with public hospitals required to provide the service free of charge. Colombia’s Supreme Court went further in 2022, legalizing abortion without restrictions up to 24 weeks, one of the most permissive frameworks in the region.
Mexico’s trajectory has been more uneven. In 2023, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional, removing it from the federal criminal code. The court also declared that defining legal personhood as beginning at conception was unconstitutional. However, implementation has been state by state. As of mid-2024, 12 of Mexico’s 32 states had legalized abortion, leaving residents in other states with more limited access.
Ecuador expanded exceptions for legal abortion through a 2021 judicial ruling, though it still does not allow the procedure on request. Several other countries in the region, including Chile and Uruguay, had already loosened restrictions in the years prior.
Countries That Allow Abortion Only for Health or Safety Reasons
A large middle group of countries permits abortion only under specific circumstances, not on request. The most common grounds are risk to the pregnant person’s life or physical health, rape, and serious fetal anomaly. Some countries in this category also include mental health as a qualifying reason, which broadens access in practice because mental health can be interpreted broadly by sympathetic physicians.
A smaller subset goes further by also permitting abortion for socioeconomic reasons. This ground acknowledges that a person’s financial situation, family size, or living conditions can justify ending a pregnancy. Countries with this provision occupy a legal middle ground: abortion isn’t available on request, but the bar for qualifying is lower than in places that require a strict medical justification.
India is one notable example. Indian law permits abortion up to 24 weeks for certain categories of women, including survivors of sexual assault and minors, with approval from medical professionals. Japan allows abortion with the consent of a spouse or partner under its maternal health law, though activists have pushed to change the consent requirement.
Progress in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa has historically had some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws, but change has been steady. Since 2000, 21 countries in the region have reformed their penal codes or passed laws expanding legal grounds for abortion. Much of this reform has been driven by the Maputo Protocol, a 2003 African Union treaty that calls on member states to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, sexual assault, fetal anomaly, or risk to the pregnant person’s life or health.
Seven countries, including Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Mauritius, reformed their laws specifically to comply with the Maputo Protocol’s provisions. Rwanda first had to withdraw a reservation to the protocol before adding rape, incest, and fetal anomaly as legal grounds in 2012. The DRC’s 2018 reform required medical facilities to provide safe abortions on the grounds the protocol establishes.
São Tomé and Príncipe stands out as one of only two countries in the world (alongside Nepal) to move across the entire spectrum from a near-total ban to abortion on request through a single reform, accomplished through its 2012 penal code revision. South Africa remains the most permissive country on the continent, allowing abortion on request up to 12 weeks.
Not every effort has succeeded. Sierra Leone’s parliament passed a Safe Abortion Act twice, in 2015 and 2016, that would have allowed abortion without restriction. The president at the time refused to sign it, leaving a colonial-era ban in place. Eight countries in the region, including Benin, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, specifically permit minors to obtain abortions under national laws.
Countries with Total or Near-Total Bans
A small number of countries prohibit abortion entirely or allow it only to save the pregnant person’s life, with no other exceptions. These include Malta (though reform efforts are ongoing), Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and several small island nations. In El Salvador, the ban is enforced aggressively, with women who experience miscarriages or pregnancy complications sometimes facing criminal prosecution.
The Philippines maintains one of the strictest bans in Asia, with no legal exceptions. In the Middle East, Iraq and Egypt restrict abortion to life-threatening situations only. Poland, once relatively permissive by Central European standards, tightened its laws dramatically in 2020 by removing fetal anomaly as a legal ground, leaving the country with one of Europe’s most restrictive frameworks.
The United States After 2022
The United States is unusual because abortion law now varies by state rather than following a single national standard. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, individual states gained the authority to set their own rules. As of now, roughly a dozen states have banned abortion almost entirely, while others have preserved or expanded access. Some states, including California, New York, and Illinois, have passed laws explicitly protecting abortion rights. Others, like Texas and Mississippi, prohibit the procedure from very early in pregnancy with narrow exceptions.
This patchwork means that a person’s access to abortion in the U.S. depends almost entirely on where they live, a situation more typical of federal systems where health policy is set at the regional level.
How Gestational Limits Compare
Even among countries that allow abortion on request, the gestational window varies significantly. Many European countries set the limit at 12 weeks. The Netherlands allows abortion on request up to 22 weeks. Colombia’s 24-week threshold is among the most generous in the world. Canada has no federal gestational limit at all, though provincial medical guidelines and availability of providers create practical limits.
After the on-request window closes, most countries still allow later abortions under more restricted circumstances, such as severe fetal anomalies or threats to the pregnant person’s health. The distinction between “legal” and “accessible” matters here: a country may technically permit abortion under certain grounds but lack trained providers, require multiple approvals, or impose waiting periods that delay care beyond the legal window.