Poverty and abortion complications in Peru

Abstract

Each year, approximately 20 million unsafe abortions – those performed by people lacking necessary skills or in environments lacking minimal medical standards, or both – take place worldwide, producing a variety of complications such as incomplete abortion, haemorrhage, sepsis, peritonitis, cervical, vaginal or uterine trauma, psychological problems, chronic infection, infertility, and death.1 Moreover, in countries where abortion is penalised, the incidence of unsafe abortions is 23 per 1000 women of childbearing age (WCA), considerably higher than the 2 per 1000 WCA observed in countries where abortion is not penalised.1 In Peru, abortion is illegal, except when it is the only option to prevent death or permanent health damage to the woman. In such cases, abortion is regulated by a technical guideline approved in 2014, which aims to improve access to this procedure, although it is not being broadly used by Peruvian doctors …