Abortion care guideline

Overview
The objective of this guideline is to present the complete set of all WHO recommendations and best practice statements relating to abortion. While legal, regulatory, policy and service-delivery contexts may vary from country to country, the recommendations and best practices described in this document aim to enable evidence-based decision-making with respect to quality abortion care.
This guideline updates and replaces the recommendations in the following previous WHO guidelines:
- Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems, second edition (2012)
- Health worker roles in providing safe abortion care and post-abortion contraception (previously known as the “task sharing” guidance) (2015)
- Medical management of abortion (2018)
The second edition contains the updated remarks for Recommendation 22. There have been no other changes made to the recommendation itself nor any other recommendations contained in this document.
Related links
Executive summary (incl. Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish)
Medical management of abortion
Medical management of abortion: pocket guide
Towards a supportive law and policy environment for quality abortion care: evidence brief
Clinical practice handbook for quality abortion care
Web annexes
A. Key international human rights standards on abortion
B. Technical meetings during guideline development