Israel
Grounds on which abortion is permitted:
To save the life of the woman Yes
To preserve physical health Yes
To preserve mental health Yes
Rape or incest Yes
Foetal impairment Yes
Economic or social reasons No
Available on request No
Additional requirements:
An abortion must be performed by a physician in a recognized medical institution, with the written consent of the pregnant woman. A legal abortion requires the approval of a committee composed of two physicians and a social worker. The committee members must be appointed by the director of the hospital where the abortion will be performed, or by the Minister of Health or a person empowered by him if the procedure is to be performed in another recognized medical institution.
Government view on fertility level: Too low
Government intervention concerning fertility level: To raise
Government policy on contraceptive use: Indirect support provided
Percentage of currently married women using
modern contraception (aged 15-49): ..
Total fertility rate (1995-2000): 2.7
Age-specific fertility rate (per 1,000 women aged 15-19, 1995-2000): 19
Government has expressed particular concern about:
Morbidity and mortality resulting from induced abortion No
Complications of childbearing and childbirth No
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births, 1990):
National 7
Western Asia 320
Female life expectancy at birth (1995-2000): 79.7
Before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, abortion legislation in Palestine was based on the British Offences Against the Person Act of 1861. A woman inducing her own abortion or consenting to its inducement was liable to imprisonment for up to seven years, while any person performing an illegal abortion was liable to imprisonment for up to 14 years. In practice, however, the law was not strictly enforced. After the creation of the State of Israel, the Government specifically incorporated the 1861 Act into Israeli law, thus adopting the general prohibition against abortions contained in the Act. However, shortly thereafter, as they had in England, courts began making exceptions for abortions performed for therapeutic purposes, so that by 1977 when new abortion legislation was enacted, it was a widely held opinion that abortions could be performed to preserve the life and physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.
The new legislation, the Criminal Law Amendment (Interruption of Pregnancy) of 31 January 1977 increased the circumstances under which abortions could be legally performed. It permitted abortions if the continuation of the pregnancy was likely to endanger the woman's life or cause her physical or mental harm, if the woman was under the age of marriage or over 40 years of age, if the pregnancy resulted from a sexual offence, incest or extramarital sexual intercourse, or if the child was likely to have a physical or mental malformation. Abortion was also legal if the continuation of the pregnancy was likely to cause grave harm to the woman or her children owing to difficult family or social circumstances in which she found herself or which prevailed in her environment.
The law of 1977 abolished penalties that were previously imposed on a woman inducing her own abortion. The penalty imposed on a person performing an illegal induced abortion was also reduced from up to 14 years’ imprisonment to up to 5 years’ imprisonment or payment of a fine.
Performance of an abortion required the approval of a three-member committee consisting of a social worker and two medical practitioners, one of whom was an obstetrician/gynaecologist. The committee was required to give its approval in writing and to set out the grounds justifying the abortion. The pregnant woman was required to give her written consent, after the physical and mental risks and consequences involved in the procedure had been explained to her. The consent of a minor did not require the approval of her representative. An abortion had to be performed by a physician in a recognized medical institution.
The law was further amended in 1979 to repeal the clause permitting abortion on broad social and economic grounds. Although abortion is still legal on broad medical grounds, segments of the Israeli population have proposed that the abortion law be further restricted. Both moral and political reasons have been voiced against liberalized abortion legislation. Some believe that destroying a foetus is equivalent to murder and that it is immoral to take the life of the unborn. The law does not specify a time limit within pregnancy in which an abortion must be performed. The costs of the abortion for minors and women who have an abortion on medical grounds are usually covered by the social insurance system. Current regulations establish that only the medical committees based throughout the country at 28 public and private hospitals have the power to authorize an abortion.
Given the widespread use of abortion in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it was predicted that the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel in the 1990s would significantly increase the demand for abortion. This did not occur, however, and abortion rates in Israel actually declined from 16 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-49 in 1992 to 12 in 1996. Women of Russian origin did register abortion rates 70 per cent higher than Israeli-born women, but this was more than offset by a decline in the abortion rate among Israeli women that was largely related to improved sex education and a greater recourse to modern contraceptives. The high rates among Russian women was still far lower than expected according to Soviet statistics.
Source: The Population Policy Data Bank maintained by the Population Division of the Department for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. For additional sources, see list of references.