Pakistan – Sindh faces alarming rise in unsafe abortions, experts warn

Experts warn iron deficiency, early marriages, lack of family planning fueling silent health crisis

Dua Abbas
October 10, 2025

KARACHI: Sindh faces a mounting women's health crisis, with an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 abortions taking place annually — many of them unsafe, unregulated, and life-threatening. This alarming figure, combined with widespread malnutrition and anemia, is placing countless women at risk, medical experts warn.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Dr Mehwish Mubarak Ali, Deputy Director (Clinics Section) of the Sindh Population Welfare Department, revealed the gravity of the situation. "In terms of blood loss, a single unsafe abortion can be as dangerous as 10 full-term pregnancies," she said.

Continued: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2571582/sindh-faces-alarming-rise-in-unsafe-abortions

10.10.2025

News

Dr Mehwish Mubarak Ali

Sayana Press Self-Injection

Sindh Population Welfare Department

Pakistan – Autonomy to plan

By Dr Hadia Aziz
September 26, 2025

Two years ago, in a government healthcare setting at the periphery, I encountered a 29-year-old mother of three who had been driven to a life-threatening, unsafe abortion by an untrained practitioner because she had no access to contraception.

Her story is not an anomaly in Pakistan. It is a chilling microcosm of a far wider national crisis. Her tragic experience highlights a fundamental failure of our state and society to safeguard the most basic right of its women: bodily autonomy.

Continued: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1346380-autonomy-to-plan

26.09.2025

Commentary

Dr Hadia Aziz

Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey

United Nations Population Fund

World Contraception Day

Providing Choice During A Humanitarian Crisis

Aug 1, 2023
By Amanda Seller, President, MSI United States

In the Northern Central region of Burkina Faso, Yvette Yoda is part of a team of mobile midwives working to provide life-saving reproductive healthcare services to women and girls who have been forced from their homes by violence.

More than two million people are internally displaced in Burkina Faso, with many living in camps. Yvette makes the difficult journey to reach them because she knows how important it is for women facing a crisis to be able to control their own futures.

Why is reproductive choice important in emergency settings?

Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeseq/2023/08/01/providing-choice-during-a-humanitarian-crisis/?sh=209d75cb1591

Pakistan – ‘Reproductive health law to end discrimination against women’

June 18, 2023

LOWER DIR: Speakers at a seminar here on Saturday said that reproductive health was a fundamental human right of everyone.

They said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Reproductive Healthcare Rights, 2020, was passed to facilitate, ensure and improve the reproductive health issues pertaining to couples. They said that the Act ensured elimination of discrimination against women.

Continued: https://www.dawn.com/news/1760315

18.06.2023

News

abortion law reform

Dr Minhajud Din

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Reproductive Healthcare Rights

Pakistan – Rubab For Multi-faceted Strategy To Improve Young Mothers’ Reproductive Health

Muhammad Irfan
Published May 23, 2023

QUETTA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News): Parliamentary Secretary Law Dr. Rubaba Khan Buledi Tuesday emphasized the need for adopting comprehensive and multi-faceted strategies to improve reproductive healthcare and the well-being of young mothers and their families.

She expressed the views while addressing at Provincial Consultative Workshop Voluntary National Survey International Conference on Population and Development organized jointly by UNFPA and the Ministry of Planning and Development here.

Continued: https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/rubab-for-multi-faceted-strategy-to-improve-y-1696412.html

23.05.2023

News

Dr. Rubaba Khan Buledi

International Conference on Population and development

Life over death, death over life: Abortion in Pakistan

In the hands of untrained practitioners, an already difficult choice comes with potentially deadly consequences

BY SHAZIA MEHBOOB TANOLI
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 16, 2022

“Fear, pressure, and pain of abortion were much more than giving birth to a child”, says Hareem, who had an induced abortion at a health care facility in Rawalpindi. Although it was her second baby, she had to abort her six-week-old pregnancy because of the baby’s abnormal growth. Recalling her experience of abortion, she says, “It was as though everything from inside me was being wrenched out in the form of blood and pieces. It took me weeks to recover physically and mentally.”

Hareem was treated in a quality health care facility, yet her recovery took weeks. That is why it is hard to imagine Safina’s experience who did not have access to a good and safe medical service and suffered the pain of abortion at the hands of an untrained midwife.

Continued: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2381813/life-over-death-death-over-life-abortion-in-pakistan

16.10.2022

Shazia Mehboob Tanoli

The safety concern in abortion debate

Mohammad Javed Pasha
July 31, 2022

Abortion is a public health concern besides being a sensitive issue with religious, moral, cultural and political dimensions. More than a quarter of the world’s people live in countries where the procedure is permitted only in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities or to save the pregnant person’s life. Abortions still occur in these countries, nearly half of them are unsafe, performed by unskilled practitioners or in unhygienic conditions, or both.

Abortions performed in unsafe conditions claim the lives of tens of thousands of women around the world every year and leave many times that with chronic and often irreversible physical and mental health problems becoming a drain on the resources of public health systems. Controversy, however, often overshadows the public health impact. An estimated 73 million abortions occur globally each year. Unsafe abortions accounts for up to 13 percent of deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth worldwide. Globally, at least 7 million women are treated every year for complications from unsafe abortions.

Continued: https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/978303-the-safety-concern-in-abortion-debate

31.07.2022

Commentary

Featured

International Conference on Population and development

maternal deaths

Medical Termination Of Pregnancy (MTP) Act

Mohammad Javed Pasha

World Health Organisation

Protecting the lives of our women and girls

Tuesday May 31 2022
Rida Tahir

There has recently been a significant debate on unsafe abortions and their consequences throughout the world since a document of the draft judgement by the Supreme Court of the United States overturning Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113) was leaked. Roe v Wade is a landmark US case. The verdict, which came out on January 22, 1973, said that states can't put too many restrictions on abortion.

Due to restrictive laws and policies, many women and girls (survivors/victims of child marriage, etc.) are forced to seek unsafe abortions, unavailability of safe abortion services, the high financial cost of accessing safe abortion services, and societal attitudes towards abortion and gender inequality. The WHO has revealed that: "Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal deaths and morbidities. It can lead to physical and mental health complications and social and financial burdens for women, communities, and health systems."

Continued: https://www.geo.tv/latest/419958-headline-protecting-the-lives-of-our-women-and-girls

31.05.2022

Featured

Opinion

Amnesty International

CEDAW

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

Why did she die?

Updated 03 Nov, 2021
By Neha Khan & Sadia Wali

Sakina has two daughters and two sons aged 7, 5, 3 respectively and the youngest is three months old and nursing. Sakina suddenly learns she is pregnant, as she did not use any method of family planning.

Sakina’s family is financially weak; her husband is the sole earner as a daily wage laborer and their circumstances do not allow them to have another child. Everyone Sakina consults tells her to continue with this pregnancy and use family planning methods for the future.

Continued: https://www.aaj.tv/news/30270495

Poor Access to Safe Abortions Is Killing South Asian Women

Even in countries where abortion is legal, access to safe abortions remains challenging

By Bansari Kamdar
June 15, 2021

One in every four maternal deaths around the world happens in South Asia. Lack of access to safe and legal abortions and contraceptives is a leading reason for the region’s high maternal mortality rate. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), less than half the abortions in South and Central Asia were safe.

In Bhutan, which has a 1.4 percent case fatality rate, one of the main reasons for maternal mortality is abortion complications. Section 146 of Bhutan’s Penal Code legalizes abortion only if it is to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy resulted from incest and rape or the mother is not of sound mental condition. Denied access to safe abortion, many Bhutanese women cross the border to neighboring India, where abortion, while legal on most grounds, remains dangerous.

Continued: https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/poor-access-to-safe-abortions-is-killing-south-asian-women/