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July 23, 2004
Adolescents, unwanted pregnancy and abortion

Every year, as many as 4.4 million adolescent girls and young women undergo abortions, the majority of which are unsafe. A new report from Ipas explores policy and program gaps that contribute to this largely unrecognized and entirely preventable problem, and calls for greater attention to the needs of young people facing unwanted pregnancies.

The report, titled "Adolescents, Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion", summarizes the global reality of adolescent unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion in order to provide recommendations for policies and health-care services for young people. The report is directed at policymakers, policy advocates, medical-care providers, and counselors and urges that they all move beyond current, exclusively preventative approaches to teen pregnancy.

"Our first and foremost goal should indeed be to reduce unwanted pregnancies as much as possible," said Ipas Senior Policy Advisor Maria de Bruyn, one of the report's authors. "But because unwanted teen pregnancies will continue to occur, due to contraceptive failure and sexual assault among other reasons, we must address this problem.

"We must address the needs of adolescents who become pregnant and do not want to or cannot carry their pregnancies to term. Doing so will enable us to prevent the avoidable loss of health and life of countless young women around the world," de Bruyn said.

Adolescents aged 10-19 comprise about one-fifth of the world's population, which is equivalent to 1.2 billion young people, according to the United Nations Population Fund. About 87 percent of these young people live in developing countries. Fewer than 5 percent of the poorest young people use modern contraceptive methods. As a result of this and other factors including lack of education about sexual and reproductive health, contraceptive failure, and sexual assault, an estimated 10-14 percent of young unmarried women around the world experience unwanted pregnancies.

Because they are less likely to be informed about abortion or have access to safe services, adolescents more often use unsafe methods to self-induce abortions or seek out unqualified providers and undergo abortions in unhygienic circumstances. As many as two-thirds of women admitted to hospitals for treatment of unsafe abortion complications are less than 20 years old, according to a recent study cited in the report. Young women are also likely to avoid or delay seeking care for abortion-related complications because of lack of transportation, lack of knowledge about the availability of postabortion care services, fear of censure or legal repercussions, or lack of money to pay for services.

"We do not have access to contraception. We are stigmatized if we have a child before marriage," said a young Congolese woman quoted in the Ipas report. Yet, she added, "we do not have the right to abortion. What a dilemma! How can we not die if we are exposed to risky abortions? How can we not resort to abortion if a child before marriage is a sacrilege? How can we avoid having children when there are no contraceptive services?"

The report, which was co-authored by de Bruyn and Ipas Policy Coordinator Sarah Packer, makes specific policy and program recommendations for preventing unwanted adolescent pregnancy and addressing its consequences, including provision of:

"This report stresses that policy-makers, health-care providers, and all those concerned about the health and well-being of girls and young women must work together to develop policies and provide services that address the consequences of unwanted adolescent pregnancy," said de Bruyn. "This issue must not be ignored."

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258