Abortion in Catholic Belgium was partially decriminalized in 1990, when King Boudin abdicated for a day so that he did not have to approve the decision. Contrary to prediction, abortion rates have not risen dramatically since. Belgium has one of the lowest rates in the world after the Netherlands and India, with 6.8 aborted pregnancies for every 1,000 women of childbearing age.
An abortion pill was available in 1999 in Several European countries and China. The chemicals in the pill cause women to have the equivalent of a miscarriage.
The legalizing of abortion does not lead automatically to its trivialization, nor to women abandoning contraception. Abortion plays essentially a palliative role for when contraception fails. One should not oppose contraception or abortion for thinking that one is the automatic substitute for the other, nor on the grounds that they go hand in hand.
Abortion is the expression of a contradiction between a woman's desires and her economic and social realities.