LEGALLY or illegally, abortion is practiced in nearly every country in the world. In fact, more than half the world's population lives in countries that permit abortion for social as well as medical reasons.
Perhaps the most permissive toward abortion is the Soviet Union, which passed an open abortion law (virtually without restrictions) in 1920, years before any other country. To arrest a declining birth rate, the law was repealed in 1936—and then reinstated in 1955. Similarly liberal laws were passed during the 1950s in many Communist countries of Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria). Japan, too, has a permissive...
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