If the No side could shoehorn it into the latest referendum debate it would not surprise me in the least.
My WAG was the Philippines, which was a correct assumption. Hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions every year put tens of thousands of women in hospital, and the Catholic leaders are still battling against using contraception.
In England, Scotland and Wales, it’;s not any kind of issue politically. Occasionally some people aver one party they dislike — say the Conservatives or UKIP — will someday probably bring in restrictions, but these remain rumours, and no-one gets excited; or one of the gutter-press rags will have an occasional headline, Scandal of 500 Million Abortions A Year Paid For By The NHS !! [ *guess which *], but again no-one really cares.
Socially it’s not discussed much, mostly because it’s none of our business.
Cite?
From wikipedia:
The 2nd paragraph is important because just how liberal the laws are may depend on the interpretation in a particular jurisdiction. But just going by the letter of law, I think the US wins out over most of Europe. Still, it’s a bit of a judgement call.
The first paragraph is largely consistent with US abortion law. After viability, states can (and enthusiastically do) limit access.
As mentioned earlier, Canada does not have any restrictions such as those set out in that summary. The lack of any laws restricting abortion I suppose make us more liberal than the US on this issue.
In Germany, not an issue (anymore). It was in the 1970s and maybe in the early 1980s. There is a certain procedure to follow and health insurance will (usually) pay for the abortion. Some Catholic bishops are unhappy.
Viability is long after the 1st Trimester. I think the cut-off is around 22 weeks. The first Trimester is about 12 weeks. Now, the vast majority of abortions are performed before the 3rd month, so only a small percentage of people seeking abortions are affected, but I can’t see how you can equate “the first trimester” with “viability”.
Likewise in many majority-Muslim countries, likeIndonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Libya, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Chad, Lebanon, Kuwait, Mauritania, Oman, Gambia, Comoros, Qatar, Djibouti, Brunei, and Maldives.
Regards,
Shodan
As I understood the debate at the time, the difficulty in composing a replacement law was that anti-abortion types refused to back a law with reasonable(!) exceptions, and pro-choice types refused to back a law with unreasonable (! - YMMV) restrictions. Since nobody could compromise, the eventual result was no law. Most of Canada seems to like it that way, current prime minister’s inclinations notwithstanding. Even Harper himself has decided that the abortion law is a can of worms he does not want to open. Liberal leader Trudeau has said that any new candidates for his party must support abortion on demand. The NDP, the other opposition party, has disallowed pro-choice candidates for over a decade. Those two parties together poll typically 60% or more of the votes, so Canadians are pretty firmly pro-choice and/or the topic is irrelevant to Canadian politics.
There’s a sort of humorous backlash in the abortion debate. Dr. Henry Morgentaler spent a career trying to bring cheap, safe outpatient abortion services to women across Canada, opening clinics in several provinces. Conservative (the outlook, not the party) politicians spent a lot of time trying to block this, and one tactic was to require the procedure be done in full hospitals, not outpatient clinics. Once the Supreme court decided that the existing law against the procedure was unconstitutional, this meant the procedures - done in hospitals - had to be funded by and covered by Medicare but the health authorities could not put limits why the procedure was to be done.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but based on my decades old learning about the Canadian/British parliamentary system - unlike the US system, the bills being passed by parliaments have a purpose. That is, a bill specifically aims to do a specific task. (Although “omnibus bills” addressing multiple tasks at once, have become more common). Amendments must either be approved by the sponsor of the bill (usually the government) and/or relate to the purpose of the bill. You cannot tack for example, “health care money cannot be spent on abortion” on a road funding bill, nor can you tack “build a bridge to nowhere” or “make pot legal” clause onto a bill to create a university in Walla Walla. regardless, in most parliaments the addition of clauses is strictly controlled by the government. The anarchy and chaos of US congressional politics seems very odd from up here. As a result, if someone wants a bill to change the law (or lack) surrounding abortion, they need to draft a specific bill and get it onto the list for parliament, not play random amendment games.
I assume many European systems are similarly controlled and so factions would find it very difficult to hijack legislation with off-topic amendments.
On-demand abortion is legal in Pakistan, according to your own citation (at least during the first trimester.) I think you’ll find those laws are more honored in the breach than the observance in most cases anyway.
No; 8.5%, much more than 2%. From the 2014 Gallup poll:
“Pro-choice” “Pro life”
Men 44 51
Women 50 41
I’m also a guy and abortion is one of my very least important issues. 
BUT I’m very astounded at the surprise that it might be a VERY important issue for women.
This kind of nonsense (along with the Canadian single and the Canadian bacon controversies) are why the U.S. needs to invade Canada and teach Canadians a lesson! 
(Just joking, but actually, you’ve made me quite jealous. Is there room for one more family in the warm part of Canada?)
Ruadh nailed it with “nope”, but I’ll expand a little. The NHS isn’t really “National” as such. It’s divided up into various regional entities, either because legislative powers are devolved (NI, Scotland and Wales) or to break the English regions down into smaller, supposedly more manageable units. Anyway, the relevance to the question is that NHS funding for services rendered is paid for by the patient’s home region - based on where you are registered with your GP, basically.
What this means is that the NHS in Northern Ireland will not pay for abortions that the other NHS regions will pay for. It’s not a Catholic thing either, lest anyone raise that like in some other posts in the thread. The decidedly non-Catholic DUP has members sitting who think that rape victims should be denied abortions. NI politics is a bit strange.
It’s also a VERY important issue for some men, in the same way that marriage equality is a VERY important issue for some straight people. Some people believe passionately in equality, whether it would affect them personally or not.
From a more self interested perspective, while I am a male, I have a daughter and 4 nieces, of whom I am quite fond.
Yet you nearly never hear these same women protesting the government forbidding them to take illegal drugs or sell sex for money. :rolleyes:
Yeah, elf kin, I hear you. What is it about all these women who have, or have not, children? They really should all be protesting about drugs and prostitution.
Fair enough, I got the conclusions of that poll wrong. You do realize the Gallup survey from last year was an outlier from the broad trend over the last couple decades though. The General Social Survey, which is probably the most widely used source for a whole varity of studies on public opinion, has been asking about abortion opinion for 30 years now, and haven’t found any consistent gender differences in opinions about abortion. (Abortion opinions are strongly influenced by religiosity and by education, not by gender per se.)