The Requests for Therapeutic Abortion in Legal Medicine Organization of Tehran: Indications for Acceptance and Rejection

In Legal Medicine Organization of Tehran, the accepted requests for therapeutic abortions are registered and the data of rejected requests would not be recorded. So, the data of all requests for therapeutic abortions, the frequency of accepted and rejected ones and their causes are not clear. In this study, all the requests for therapeutic abortions referred to Legal Medicine Organization of Tehran during 2008 were evaluated.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on all pregnant women who referred to gynecologic ward of Legal Medicine Organization of Tehran for therapeutic abortion during 2008. The data related to fetal and maternal age, history of previous pregnancies and indications for acceptance or rejections of the requests were gathered by the examiner physician. The data were analyzed using the SPSS ver. 13.

During the study period, 774 requests for therapeutic abortions were evaluated; 556 requests (71.8%) were accepted and 218 requests (2.28%) were rejected. Fetal abnormalities and maternal illnesses were the indications for request acceptance in about 80% and 20% of cases respectively. The most common fetal abnormality was anencephaly, which accounts for 21.5% (99 cases) of fetal indications. In maternal illnesses, cardiovascular disorders were the most frequent one (26 cases). In 90 cases, the requests were rejected due to increased age of the fetus. Other causes of request rejection were drug usage of the mother (30 cases), infectious diseases in the mother (18 cases) and exposure to ionizing radiation (17 cases).

The results of this study showed that requests for therapeutic abortion were not accepted in about one third of cases and the most common cause of request rejection was the increased age of fetus. Providing educations about the law of therapeutic abortion, on time screening for fetal abnormalities and early referral of the cases in whom therapeutic abortion is indicated would be necessary.