What's needed to improve safety and quality of abortion care: reflections from WHO/HRP Multi-Country Study on Abortion across the sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and Caribbean regions.

### Summary box In the advent of safe methods, access to information and trained providers, abortion has become a very safe procedure; however, unsafe abortions continue to persist in many parts of the world. Unsafe abortions account for half of all abortions globally, with the majority occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and Caribbean (LAC).1 Severe abortion-related complications arise from least safe abortions.1 Between 2008 and 2013, it was estimated that approximately 10% of maternal deaths are attributable to abortion-related causes in sub-Saharan Africa and LAC2; however, studies exploring abortion morbidity and mortality including management of these complications have been limited or varied in estimations of the complications limiting comparability as there has been a lack of standard definitions, identification criteria and measurement tools. Since the early 2000s, WHO/HRP has been conducting a series of WHO Multi-Country Studies (MCSs) on maternal and newborn health across multiple countries and health facilities globally.3–5 Using …