Talk:Abortion in Europe

In Northern Ireland, update to March 2021

As of March 2021, the Northern Ireland abortion law is still the subject of a heated Parliamentary debate (sources: irishtimes.com, hansard.parliament.uk; reuters.com, theguardian.com). So far, the parts are looking over the proposal to devolve to the Westminster legislative body the role of approving a new abortion regulation for Northern Ireland or to empower the responsibility to the Northern Ireland Minister of Health and his Department. The matter seems to be contentious and this suggest updating the WP article after a final decision had been taken. However, one of more the cited sources may be useful for the WP article.Theologian81sp (talk) 22:03, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

A Completely False Statement in the Article

"Europe's formerly Communist countries have liberal abortion laws. The only exception is Poland..."

Check ANY Country that was formerly a Communist country, and they ALL have very Conservative Abortion Laws. Every single one of them allows Abortion only under special circumstances after 12 Weeks of Pregnancy, including Russia, which has some parts of Europe, and East Germany which is now Germany. Take the time and look each Country up on "Abortion in XXXX, from Wikipedia."

All of those formerly Communist countries have Abortion Laws more Conservative than the United States of America, even more Conservative than Mississippi that is requesting 15 Weeks right now.

To me, the article is written with the idea that Europe is more Conservative on Abortion due to Catholicism, it is not that at all, it is a matter of Human Rights. Consider, most of Europe is Secular Humanism, not Catholicism. This article is written in a Biased Manner.Easeltine (talk) 15:52, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

"Restrictions on abortion are most stringent in a few countries that are strongly observant of the Catholic religion." - This does not even appear to be the TRUTH.Easeltine (talk) 15:55, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Misleading image

The title of the article is "abortion in Europe" and there is a chart of countries with "Allowed" and "Not allowed". On first look one would think it is a map of countries where abortion is allowed, but it is actually where "Conscientious objection to abortion by doctors" is allowed. --24.12.175.71 (talk) 18:22, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Swiss statistics don't make sense

Someone needs to correct the table titled "Abortion rates per 1000 women residing in Switzerland" because it makes no sense. All the age intervals start from 15 years old: 15-19; 15-49; 15-44. Perhaps it should read 15-19; 20-34; 35-49? That would make more sense. The source article is in German, so I am unable to make the corrections myself.

I hope it is obvious to others why those age intervals don't make sense. For one, why mix the order up and put 15-49 between 15-19 and 15-44? Secondly, simple logic would require the 15-49 interval to have the highest number of abortions per 1000 women (if not tied with the statistics of the other intervals), but the table shows a stat between the stats for the other two intervals. This would be impossible unless women 44-49 had a negative number of abortions. Someone please fix this. Thank you. 66.91.36.8 (talk) 23:10, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi,

the age categories are present in the source, too. And the source is the Swiss statistical office.

I checked the source again, and the source now shows the data for 2020 and 2021 (the article shows 2019 and 2020). There is no conflict between our article and the source.

The data is not impossible. It would be impossible if one of the abortion rate of the larger age brackets (15 to 44 or 15 to 49) were near 0, which is isn't.--Keimzelle (talk) 11:22, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Portugal

The map is wrong - in most cases, abortion only is legal in Portugal until 10 weaks.--MiguelMadeira (talk) 00:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Belgium

The map is also wrong for Belgium. It's legal in Belgium until 12 weeks (with exceptions possible at lager stages such as in the case of danger to the life of the mother). UlyssorZebra (talk) 10:39, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Abortion in the UK

Should probably be noted in the table that abortion in the UK is legal until birth if the fetus/baby would be disabled. 62.31.246.12 (talk) 05:02, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Quality

This page needs A LOT of work. The subject matter is not necessarily my strong suit, but I happened to find this page as I went down the good ole Wikipedia rabbit hole. While Abortion in the United States has its issues as pointed out in the introductory info-box template, this page is in such a state of disrepair that any comparison is good enough to try and improve the encyclopedic quality. This page should be a hub of information for the status of abortion in the various European nations, EU and otherwise. There might not be the intense controversy that is going on right now in the United States, but there is still history and a range of perspectives practiced both in the past and the present. Again, this subject matter is not my strong suit, but if any editor sees the notes, please do what you can to make changes and improve this article's quality, for the sake of the average reader.

As some suggestions, 1) fill out the chart, with proper sources. I'm sure there is a WikiProject or something that has good sources. 2) Why does Switzerland get an entire devoted heading, and other countries don't? Conversely, what is so important to include this information here as opposed to Abortion in Switzerland? 3) Discuss the overarching history. Of course, Europe consists of a wide diversity of different countries and contexts, but we still need that structure to justify this page's existence. Think of this page as a hub for the individual "Abortion in..." pages, like Abortion in the United States also operates as a hub for the individual states. Maybe there also needs to be an Abortion in the European Union page? I don't know. At this point, I am just ranting, but I implore any editor to see what I can do, or foster conversation on potential changes. TNstingray (talk) 23:42, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

What does "pregnancy" mean? (ambiguous wording)

@Der under Smurf, Keimzelle, and Ordinary Person: Since 12 weeks is the first trimester, I assume that "up to 12 weeks" means time from implantation, and includes the 12th week. But is this true for all countries? Do some countries measure the span from implantation, others from fertilization, and yet others from LMP (onset of last menstrual period)? Per the 2019 Mexican Supreme Court ruling, WHO and FIGO define "pregnancy" as starting with implantation, so it would make sense European or perhaps EU countries would use this definition, but I'd like to verify.

The point of this is to create a series of maps of the limits for elective abortion, with a shared color key so that the limits in Europe and North America can be directly compared. We ran into a definitional problem problem with the US map, where Massachusetts counts from implantation but all other states (AFAICT) count from LMP, and with the Mexico map, where "12 weeks" and "13 weeks" are actually the same limit (through 12 weeks = before 13 weeks, both equivalent to "15 weeks" in most of the US). My first draft of the European map probably has the limits as too strict, due to difficulty in understanding what "x weeks" means.

(This map has been shifted 3 weeks from the values of those colors on the US map, similarly to the Mexican map.) Thanks.

@Der under Smurf, your map in this article goes into more detail with countries where abortion is illegal with limited exceptions, or for exceptions after the limit kicks in; my map ignores those details. — kwami (talk) 21:07, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Kwamikagami: My map is based on the limited information you could find on Wikipedia. It was been a month or so since I made that map and I can't really recall everything 100%, but for the most part it followed the information given by Wikipedia before this newly added table we can see on the article. I believe the term "pregnancy" could mean different things depending on the country, Turkey, Poland, Bosnia could define pregnancy as being directly after conception (I must say, I have not clue what I'm talking about here), I assume due to them being quite religious countries and could define pregnancy as being the moment directly after conception.

I understand your problem since I believe that I ran into a similar problem when making my map. I got my information by going to every country's Wikipedia page on abortion and putting in the data. With Ukraine there seemed to be a strange weird issues since it showed it to be at something like 28 weeks and also at 12 weeks. My map tries to cover, without going too much into detail the rules on abortion, since there are differences, like with Poland and Malta, where in Poland you are allowed to get an abortion but it is restricted to instances such as rape, while in Malta it is illegal in all cases. That is something I see your map doesn't cover. I know that you map is still a draft but I do find it a little bit complicated to read, but at least it's a .svg file, which mine is not.

Again, I don't really know what I can do to help, I made a sloppy map which tries to cover everything at some level of detail but it is difficult.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, some of the colors are rather close together, but they're for limits that are close together. That's because I'm trying to interpolate colors between colors that are already defined. Yeah, I'm ignoring all the health and rape etc. excemptions; I'm addressing, if you don't qualify for an exemption, how much time do you have?

BTW, it looks like the Ukrainian situation applies to the entire ex-USSR in Europe, with the exceptions of Abxazia, Estonia and maybe the other Baltic States. (Turkmen is also an exception, but barely on the map.) Seems like it might be similar to the Ilse of Mann, where they have a limit for elective abortion, but then a second limit that's so generously interpreted that you can usually count that as the de facto limit. Or like UK and Finland where there is no legal elective abortion, but again with generous exemptions that mean there effectively is. I tried colored borders to indicate that, but perhaps striping would be better. — kwami (talk) 03:16, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami:, hi! Switzerland (and most European countries, I'm sure) use the medical definition of "pregnancy starts on the date when the menstruation should have set in". It's not coupled to fertilization, date of intercourse, or implantation of the fertilized egg cell.--Keimzelle (talk) 11:13, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@Keimzelle: Thanks. Do you have a ref for that? That would be a 4th way of counting. — kwami (talk) 18:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: err no, it's still three different definitions. I looked it up. It's counted from the "1st day of the last period".--Keimzelle (talk) 19:49, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I just come across this page and wanted to make similar point.

1) Listing the various legal limits without also the mentioning calculation methods is not very helpful. The difference can be as high as 4 weeks. The paragraph "Abortion rules per country" in the article could maybe start with an explanation of the various definitions of the legal starting point of a pregnancy and assign letters/acronyms to them. These could then be used for a new column in the table. Or since there seems to be a considerable overlap between US states and European countries, there could be a dedicated page for that, which could then be reference by this article and its US counterpart.

2) I am from Austria and the '13 weeks' listed in the table is definitely wrong and not supported by the cited source [20]. A better source for Austria would be this page by the 'Federal Ministry of Social Affairs and Health' https://www.gesundheit.gv.at/leben/eltern/schwangerschaft/info/schwangerschaftsabbruch-gesetzliche-regelungen.html

The page also explains the different ways to calculate the legal starting point of a pregnancy. (Google translate does a good job as far as I can tell.) Quoting from that source: "This states that a pregnancy can be legally terminated within the first three months of pregnancy. This means the period before the beginning of the 16th week of pregnancy." and further "The progression of a pregnancy is usually not calculated from the time of actual fertilization, but from the first day of the last menstrual bleeding. If this is 16 weeks ago, the unborn child is around 14 weeks old."

So depending on which definition of pregnancy you choose, it's either 16 weeks or 14 weeks, but it certainly is not 13 or 12 weeks. Which, if I may make wild guess, is probably true for a lot of countries where the table just says "12 weeks".

HTH 80.108.132.234 (talk) 15:09, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually your Austrian source is saying it's 15 weeks LMP = 13 weeks (3 months) + 14 days= 13 weeks + 2 Weeks = 15 weeks, not 16 weeks (the source says it's legal BEFORE the 16th week). But it's unclear whether the figures given for other countries are LMP (=since Last Menstrual Period) or not, or whether some are and others aren't, and our article and table needs to clarify this. For instance a plurality of countries use 12 weeks, while France and Spain use 14 weeks, but they would all be 12 weeks if in fact France and Spain are LMP and the other countries are not, which is unclear. But our current statement that most European countries allow abortion on request within the first trimester is clearly misleading, as 12 weeks is 1 week short of the first trimester if it's not LMP, or 3 weeks short if it is LMP (and 12 weeks may well be popular precisely because it is short of the first trimester (although a pedant might argue that it's not technically wrong, because 12 weeks, or indeed 1 or 2 weeks, is technically within the first trimester - but Wikipedia is not supposed to use pedantry to mislead readers). So I think I will now add a clarify request (plus a reason parameter) beside First Trimester. Incidentally the 14 day (actually 14.6 days) difference between LMP and non-LMP is just an average, with the actual difference varying from 8 to 20 days (in 95% of cases), at least according to the relevant Wikipedia article. Tlhslobus (talk) 18:43, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Actually, a typical pregnancy is 36 to 37 weeks, so 12 weeks is indeed the first trimester. This is the measure that Mexico uses. But Mexico measures by actual pregnancy -- that is, the time during which you can actually induce a miscarriage -- so its 12 weeks are equivalent to 15 weeks in the US. If these European countries do the same, then they would also be consistent. — kwami (talk) 18:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Are you sure? 15 weeks LMP is (on average) 13 weeks embryonic age, not 12. And 36 to 37 weeks embryonic age is 38 to 39 weeks LMP, and 39 weeks is 9 months, or 3 trimesters (3 three-month periods, with trimester meaning three months, something which has been known since Antiquity, which is why the Feast of the Annunciation falls on March 25, exactly 9 months before Christmas on December 25). But I'm no expert so it could perhaps be that obstetricians have redefined trimester to mean 12 weeks instead of 13, tho I would like some authoritative source for that. Tlhslobus (talk) 19:06, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

13 weeks embryonic age is 12 weeks of physical (as opposed to legal) pregnancy, because the embryo doesn't implant for a week after fertilization. Half of all embryos are expelled before implantation (i.e. fail to implant), and those aren't miscarriages. An abortion is an induced miscarriage, so preventing an embryo from implanting is not abortion. That is, it's not possible to have an abortion during the first 3 weeks LMP. (On average, anyway.) In Mexico, you can have an abortion in your first week of pregnancy, because "pregnancy" under Mexican law means actually pregnant (an implanted embryo/fetus that can be induced to miscarry). — kwami (talk) 19:45, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Pregnancy#Trimesters says that sources differ, and the first trimester is either 12 weeks or 14 weeks depending on which source is being quoted. And it also confusingly says that the end of these weeks is either (11 weeks + 6 days) or (13 weeks + 6 days), with no clear explanation for the use of 6 days instead of 7 (though I suspect it's because they conventionally start counting at Week 0 Day 0, so that the last day of the 12th week is Week 11 Day 6, and our article then misleadingly implies that a day is omitted from the last week). But ignoring the 6 days question as irrelevant to this article, we still need clarification about the meaning of trimester in this article (it would seem most European countries are using the 12 week definition, but France and Spain are using the 14 week definition, while Austria is using a 15 week definition, as incidentally the US states of Florida and Arizona (at least according to the current map in Abortion in the United States), while Mexico is seemingly in effect using 14 weeks (not 15), which is 12 weeks embryonic age). Tlhslobus (talk) 19:36, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I suspect that the "X weeks + 6 days" wording is to clarify what is meant by "weeks". In Mexico, some state laws speak of 12 weeks and others of 13 weeks, but they're actually all the same length of time, because they mean during the first 12 weeks vs before the 13th week. By saying "11 weeks 6 days", the length of time is made clear without any practical difference, because a doctor can't estimate pregnancy to the day.

Mexico is 12 weeks pregnancy, which is 13 weeks embryonic age and 15 weeks LMP. — kwami (talk) 19:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your very helpful and informative clarifications, kwami. However Mexico is not in Europe, and our article is still going to confuse many of our readers, just as it confused me over trimester, and our mapmaker over Austria. And quite likely there are other such confusions, due (perhaps among other things) to different countries measuring age of pregnancy differently (or at least I'd be surprised if Austria is the only one). The question now is how best to try to fix matters. But I've already spent far more time on this than I had expected or hoped. So, per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and WP:BNO, I'm not sure that I want to put any more effort into it, at least for now anyway. Tlhslobus (talk) 20:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

If people only cared about Europe, then indeed Mexico and the US would be irrelevant. But it's very confusing to use one definition for one country and a different one for another, without clarifying which we're using when. That would be a problem even if all European countries followed the same definition. — kwami (talk) 03:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)