Safe abortion care is the provision of abortion services that are supported in full or in part by the formal health care system. Safe abortion care involves the use of medication or procedures recommended by the World Health Organization that is appropriate to the pregnancy duration and performed by a trained provider. Self-managed abortion is also an important way people can access safe abortion care, managing some or all of their abortion experience at home with appropriate medication.

In this tool, all safe abortion care is counted as including access to accurate information, counseling and services provided within the health care system (with costs for health personnel support included), recognizing that even people self-managing an abortion should have access to these services if they want or need them.

This calculator defines a safe abortion as one provided by a trained provider using an appropriate method recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). An unsafe abortion meets fewer or none of these criteria.

People can also safely manage an abortion at home with medication abortion. To meet the WHO definition of safe abortion care, this type of self-managed abortion also needs to include counseling and access to information and follow-up care, if desired by the person managing an abortion. However, medication abortion is increasingly available through pharmacies and other non-facility providers, and there is limited evidence on the extent of access to accurate information in those circumstances, along with counseling or follow-up care from a provider if desired. Therefore, the current version of the calculator can only model safe abortion care, including self-managed abortions, that are provided through formal health facilities.

In the future, the model’s inputs and assumptions may be updated to better capture self-managed abortions as more data on pharmacy provision and other forms of access to medication abortion become available.

Postabortion care is the provision of services after an abortion, either spontaneous (i.e., miscarriage) or induced, that can include management of complications. The World Health Organization (WHO) framework for postabortion care underscores the importance of postabortion care as one component across a continuum of abortion care, noting that postabortion care also should include access to contraceptive services and linkages to other needed services in the community.

Individuals may receive treatment for both severe and nonsevere complications. Common complications treated with postabortion care include incomplete uterine evacuation, hemorrhage and infection; more severe complications like shock, organ system failure, coma and death can also occur. Postabortion care aims to reduce morbidity and mortality by addressing both immediate medical needs and long-term, preventive reproductive health care.

Research has documented widespread variability in the capacity of individual health facilities and broader health systems to provide all elements of the WHO postabortion care framework.

The calculator can be used by advocates, policymakers, researchers and anyone interested in better understanding abortion safety in a specific low- or middle-income country or geographic region.

For any given percentage of abortions in a country or region that are provided through safe abortion care, the calculator estimates the number of women in need of postabortion care and the costs to provide it. The calculator also estimates the cost to provide safe abortion care.

The calculator provides the following estimates in a particular country or region: the percentage of abortions that are currently provided through safe abortion care, the number of women who currently need postabortion care, and the current costs to the health system to provide safe abortion and postabortion care. When a user changes the percentage of abortions provided via safe abortion care, the calculator generates a comparison with the current scenario, showing changes in the number of women who need postabortion care and the costs to provide postabortion care and safe abortion care.

The costs for postabortion care and safe abortion care can be interpreted together: As countries invest more in safe abortion care, the costs for providing that care increase, while the costs for providing postabortion care decrease.

The Safe Abortion Calculator is based on data from Guttmacher’s Adding It Up 2024 study and a sub-analysis that models changes in safe abortion provision with updated data for 2026 (paper under review).

For more information about the methodology used to create the Safe Abortion Calculator, see the Safe Abortion Calculator Methodology Report and Adding It Up 2024 Methodology Report.

• Percentages of safe abortion care in the calculator are almost all based on subregional estimates. Country-level estimates of the proportion of abortions occurring in safe versus unsafe conditions are available for five countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India and Nepal).
• The total abortions in each country are classified by “safe” or “unsafe” categories, then distributed by methods of provision. Safe methods include a mix of all options recommended by the World Health Organization: manual or electric vacuum aspiration (MVA/EVA), dilation and evacuation, and medication abortion. Less safe methods include dilation and curettage, MVA/EVA not performed by a trained provider and medication abortion not dispensed by a trained provider.
• The number of women in need of postabortion care is calculated based on abortion complication rates. Abortion complications are classified as either severe or nonsevere based on the different types of treatment required. Estimates of complications are drawn from a review of studies on postabortion complications. The calculator estimates assume that all women needing postabortion care receive it, and do not account for the unmet need for postabortion care and challenges in access.
• Costs for induced abortions are calculated separately for each service type in each safety category, covering drugs and supplies, personnel, and program and system costs. Costs for postabortion care are calculated separately by complication type, taking into consideration that women can have more than one complication.
• The calculator can display impact estimates for all possible scenarios of safe abortion care provision, from 0% of abortions provided via safe abortion care to 100%. To calculate the impacts and costs associated with each change in the proportion of abortions provided through safe abortion care, the analysis accounts for changes in the safety profile of abortions in a country and determines the associated impacts of women needing postabortion care and costs for safe abortion care and postabortion care.

These estimates represent numbers of abortions and women needing postabortion care for 2024. The costs associated with postabortion care and safe abortion care are in 2026 US dollars and adjusted to other currencies based on 2026 exchange rates. 

We anticipate updating these impacts on an annual basis in conjunction with estimates for Guttmacher’s Adding It Up project, which is planned to have annual updates starting in 2027.

The calculator includes data and estimates for 117 countries classified as low or middle income, based on the World Bank’s gross national income classifications. This group, a subset of the 128 countries included in the Adding It Up study, covers subregions where the estimated incidence of unsafe abortion is higher than 25% (based on Ganatra et al., 2017).

Visit the Center for Reproductive Rights’ webpage detailing the World’s Abortion Laws.