The Effects of Unsafe Abortion on the Health System from a Socio-economic Perspective: A Narrative Review

Many illegal and underground centers lacking minimal medical standards are operating in addition to the women who personally decide to terminate their pregnancy with unsafe means, which can lead to maternal mortality and morbidity. The socio-economic effects of abortion can bring enormous costs to the healthcare system. Therefore, this study was conducted to review the effects of unsafe abortion on the health system from a socio-economic perspective.

In this narrative review, English databases including Pubmed, Scopus, SID, Web of Sciences, and Google Scholar, as well as Persian databases of Magiran and SID, were examined. To obtain all the desired Persian and English articles, the English keywords, Including pregnancy, unintended pregnancy, abortion, illegal abortion, intentional abortion, economic consequences, social consequences, costs, social and economic consequences, reproductive health indicators, and their Persian equivalents, were used in the period between 1990  and 2022. Thirteen related articles were reviewed

The findings extracted from the reviewed studies were in three areas unsafe abortion and population; unsafe abortion and health; and unsafe abortion and reproductive health from a socio-economic point of view.

From a socio-economic perspective, unsafe abortion can affect fertility indicators in the health system and cause a decrease in women’s quality of life and labor force productivity.