Social taboos, traditions and familial pressure as well as issues of personal privacy can often pose the question to a woman, regarding how to terminate a pregnancy safely and effectively. When issues such as taboos and pressures confront women, the problem of unsafe abortion methods do crop up.

According to a WHO (World Health Organization) unsafe abortions are a significant worry because they result in complications and even the needless death of women. This makes the question of how to terminate a pregnancy safely and effectively a very important one. This is because as many as 10 to 60% (depending upon the country that the statistics are sourced from) of maternal deaths occur due to unsafe abortions.

How to Terminate a PregnancyWith the raging pro-life debate on the one hand and the pro-choice argument on the other, there tends to be a lot of exaggeration and misrepresentation, so say nothing of sensationalizing of the issues involved.

This tends to obfuscate the reality regarding how to terminate a pregnancy with both sides trying to present the most convincing argument.

How to terminate a pregnancy safely and effectively

According to the WHO report referred to above, unsafe abortions are those that are performed in insanitary or unhygienic conditions, those that are performed using hazardous methods or equipment or the instances of abortions performed by unskilled persons.

There is evidence to show that when abortions are performed using standard laid down procedures, they are among the safest procedures in the world.

In fact there is evidence to show that abortion is actually safer for a woman than childbirth. Childbirth is far more likely to result in a woman’s death than an abortion procedure.

An abortion that is performed before the 21st week of gestation is thought to be safe for a woman’s health.

When however a woman’s access to proper medical facilities, equipment and trained health care personnel is restricted for any reason, the question of how to terminate a pregnancy safely does arise.

This question of safety also arises in another manner – when unskilled individuals using hazardous or unproven methods try to induce abortion it may result in a partial abortion which could either endanger the mother’s life or it could result in a child being born with severe deformities of other problems.

Another reason to consider the safety of abortion is the often cited connection between abortion and cancer of the breast. It is suggested that certain developments are ongoing in the breasts during pregnancy and these are interrupted by the termination of the pregnancy, and this results in the presence of certain immature cells in the breast, which tend to be more cancer prone.

This argument is often presented to those wanting to know how to terminate a pregnancy safely; by suggesting that abortion is unsafe because it causes breast cancer. This is however proven to be false and there is no link found to exist between abortion and breast cancer. So long as a woman seeks and finds trained professional using standard procedures in hygienic conditions, there is really very little that can go wrong with abortion.