The Center for Reproductive Rights maps and ranks all countries based on abortion laws. The “most restrictive” category has the largest number of countries listed in it.
This doesn’t mean that all 68 countries listed are equal in terms of their restrictiveness. For example, Ms. Fine says that Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, and Malta are considered to have the most restrictive laws in the world, in large part because they at one point allowed for abortions under certain circumstances, such as risk of maternal death, but have since taken legal steps to ban abortion under any scenario.
The reasoning for these changes depends on the country.
In Malta, a conservative country where divorce was legalized only last year, ties to the Roman Catholic Church played an important role in tightening restrictions in 1981, says Fine. Both pregnant women and doctors can be imprisoned for up to four years for attempting an abortion.
In Nicaragua, however, abortion restrictions that came into effect in 2008 were largely political. Al Jazeera reports that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega courted the support of the Catholic Church before his 2007 election by banning abortions under all circumstances. “The revised Penal Code introduces criminal sanctions for doctors and nurses who treat a pregnant woman for medical conditions such as cancer or cardiac emergencies where the treatment may cause injury to or death of the embryo or fetus,” says Amnesty International.
